


The girl with everything, and the boy from nothing

by bunnystealsyourcarrots



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Angst, Blood and Violence, Character Death, Dark, F/M, Romance, Smut, Suicide, fair maidens need worry, grim, no medieval unicorns in the fields will do any rescuing of virgins, tomione - Freeform, tough as nails Hermione, violent Tom Riddle, ye olde timey romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2020-05-18 17:51:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19339555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnystealsyourcarrots/pseuds/bunnystealsyourcarrots
Summary: A Tomione Medieval Au where a lord from nothing and nowhere surrounds the castle of a princess with the intent to take everything from her brick by bloody brick.





	1. Chapter 1

As the last of the Grangers in Gryffindor Hall, Princess Hermione inherited her father’s extensive lands upon his death. The role of queen hers as soon as they opened the gates to let in a bishop. The gold and scarlet splattered crown in her hands intended to weigh heavily upon her head for the rest of her life, but the man in black armor with his matching horde on the other side of the castle moat offered to shorten her years of suffering- her years in general.

 

“What say you today, Princess?”

 

“I say you murdered my father, my mother, my brother,” Hermione shouted down from the battlements, raised the crown higher so he could see how close and far away he remained from his goal, “and rats shall clean off your bones before I surrender to you, Lord Voldemort.”

 

The Lord turned, lifted his hand.

 

A lethal arch of silver in his executioner's grip separating head from sinnew.

 

A gentle red-haired elderly shopkeeper from a village over, whom Princess Hermione knew from infancy, falling to her knees in the gore-drenched grass. The spurting blood and high-pitched cries from her rising into the air as Lord Voldemort ordered the ax to drop three times before slicing through. The torture, excessive. The day after day commitment from Princess Hermione to stand her ground slowly chipping away at her iciest glare towards Lord Voldemort as she still refuses to look away from him executing person after person under her care, but she is the last of the Grangers.

 

The moat below filling up with heads and horrors, but the drawbridge remaining up.

 

__________________________________

 

At night a servant unlaces Princess Hermione’s dress sleeves by candlelight.

 

The castle understandably silent after hours of screaming rings in everyone's ears. The sounds loud enough in their heads without anyone opening their mouth, and an exhausted Hermione presses her fingers to her temple. A moment. A small grounding touch before she offers her pearl-covered hand back to the servant.

 

The whispers about the young princess’s lack of tenderness sure to soon pick up, as they have each day, but the servant knows better. The fine fabric under her touch is wet with tears. The crownless monarch mourning away from the front lines where the black-haired and cold-hearted Lord only seeks to use her empathy against her, turn her people against her. The reputation of a kind and clever and just Princess Hermione obliterated bit by bloody bit. The parade of pain continuing in the morning as it has for a fortnight, but she knows her enemy too well to let him in- to let him see her flinch or tremble.

 

But the dark sees and closes in around her.

 

_____________________________________

 

It came to be that the first of the season’s snowflakes fell on the morning when Hermione’s father initially dismissed the threat looming on the horizon. A bad omen if ever his wife had seen one. The hint of a long bitterly cold stretch of misery not boding well when receiving a scroll asking for unconditional surrender, but King Wendell laughed it off. How absurd. How out of the question to entertain the notion of giving anything up to someone who had nothing to his name. The name he signed on the bottom of his offer created to begin with, ripped out of a will to be someone else, and King Wendell refused to honor the wishes of someone who could not even pretend to see his true self as worthy.

 

“He seeks a treaty!” The king chuckled, beside himself with amusement as his teeth tore into plump guinea fowl between reading. “In exchange for my home, and my income, and my crown, _Lord Voldemort_ shall allow me to serve as a baron beneath him. Hear! Hear! What a kindness he shows me.”

 

At his side, his wife did not join in on laughing.

 

“Dear husband,” she gently touched his arm, his queen of heart and home never daring question him when others could hear, but her light voice calmed the tittering at the table.” Didst we not so recently hear something about Lord Voldemort’s revolt against King Albus?”

 

“The fortunate sacking of one castle does not a great threat make.”

 

The formerly casual grip on Hermione's knife and fork tightened a fraction before she placed them down on her plate. A shake to her fingers. The rosy apples of her cheeks paled, and she swallowed hard without food in her mouth.

 

“'Tis two, father.”

 

"Two?"

 

"Begging your pardon," Hermione politely dipped her head, gathering strength in her words after a fond encouraging smile from her father who adored her so, "but I believe that we art forgetting that Lord Voldemort married Lady Bellatrix Lestrange. They married in May, and doth you not find it convenient that her most robust father didst so suddenly expire some two months later? The very same father with a castle closest to Castle Dumbledore and whose sworn men were under Lord Voldemort's charge when he took out King Albus. Aye, we didst nae hear of a second slaughter and sacking, but I fear that that first battle for Lord Voldemort was less openly won.”

 

“Ah, ‘tis curious,” the last of the King’s good mood dropped, a pointed glance flicking towards his closest advisor, “and yet again, I say that I pity the man who discounts your cleverness.”

 

For Hermione, it felt like the whole of the hall's attention locked on her. The tension tight around every set of lips, no matter where she looked. The unease puckering their brows. A series of subtle reminders surrounding her like a silent chorus of concern before she recalled too late that her opinions carried weight, that in the path of danger the most vulnerable in the way always looked to strong leaders. The first threads of panic easier calmed back in place by the presence of a firm hand guiding the fearful through rough waters, and to save her father from publicly appearing weaker -or less perceptive- than a maiden half his age, she beamed up at him. A look of innocence and demureness- and everything that she was not inside- twinkling in her toffee-colored eyes.

 

“Oh, I am sure I only echo the same conclusion that you once voiced before around me. Pray, pay me no compliment as my only spot of cleverness is having the foresight to pay such close attention to your wise observations, father.

 

“How lucky I am to have your memory.”

 

“How lucky we art to have you,” Hermione smiled, picked up her knife to fall back into meal merriment with joy in her voice that didn’t quite reach her eyes, “and such good food.”

 

"Well said,” King Wendell nodded, clearing the air with a laugh that restarted the music that he hadn’t noticed die out, “and worry not Princess, a young upstart shall not threaten a house as great and old and solid as ours."

 

A roar of agreement echoed in the hall.

 

________________________________________

 

“In your bright eyes is King Wendell’s warmth.”

 

“In your tawny curls, the springy spirit from your lady mother.”

 

As far back as Hermione could remember, she endured frequent well-meaning reminders that all the most prized parts of her came from someone else. The mention of her intellect and curiosity far down the list of feathers in her cap. Her pretty features, and the importance of them for later securing a well-made match, obviously more important.

 

By the age of sixteen, there wasn’t a map in Gryffindor Hall that she hadn’t studied; the routes poured over so that before her brother took to the sea, Hermione could point out what shores best to avoid or choose to shorten his journey. The advice from a young woman on land reasonably ignored when solid sailors should know well enough how to keep him safe and swiftly on his way, but her beloved brother Prince Harold understood better than to doubt her passionate convictions. After all, Hermione was the one who on command could alphabetically list the lords and ladies from fifty noble houses and all their bastard children too. It was his little sister with her snub nose and ever-questioning mind who could name three practical uses for any herb outside of taste.

 

All the many slips of knowledge once seen by her or cared to learn by her eventually put to wise use.

 

A wealth of facts and figures ready to leap off the tip of her tongue whenever she needed them again, and away from court gossipers, she'd obsessively rattle off the most random observations to Harold until he teased her by saying that she was an old, wise witch in a fresh body.

 

How better to explain how Princess Hermione could stow away every small detail in her brain for later use? Or why she never looked prouder than on the occasion when she first smeared berry juice onto a vicious cut on Harold's arm, and the wound expediently healed just as she'd read it would. But over and over, Princess Hermione heard from those who cared more about her surface than her core desires,

 

“In your bright eyes is King Wendell’s warmth.”

 

“In your tawny curls, the springy spirit from your lady mother.”

 

A couple of easy praises for nothing in her control.

 

A surefire way to send her inwardly cringing when she longed for her other quirks and gifts to gain notice and value.

 

A comment on her features the last thing on her mind on any day but especially on the one when the menace who called himself Lord Voldemort reached their drawbridge one afternoon in April with his army in tow. “Alas,” he shouted up, coal-black helmet dangling from his fingers as if no one alive posed him any threat. The row upon row of men behind him eerily silent when his blood-dipped banners whipped in the wind,“you hath ignored my treaty conditions, King Wendell."

 

At the top of the castle gatehouse, the queen tightened her hold on her husband’s arm.

 

“I shall not make a deal with you,” King Wendell replied, his palm up to hold his archers at bay, “I do nae bargain with made up men.”

 

“Aye, but I assure you that I am quite real,” Lord Voldemort nodded, flashed a wide grin, “and we art quarreling now since you made me travel here with my men. As you refused to see reason, I had nae choice but to feed them all the stored dried deer and hogs that you hid away for winter feasting. I had to burn up your wheat fields too to keep the rowdy bastards entertained between torturing and raping the whores in your countryside- the good pious men and women too- and how exhausted we art now.”

 

The King blanched, jaw trembling from anger.

 

Lord Voldemort dusted off his helmet. ”For so inconveniencing me, I regretfully inform you that the conditions hath changed.”

 

“You uncivilized animal-”

 

“Your flattery falls on deaf ears,” Lord Voldemort impertinently sang, lazily plucked a bow and arrow out of the hand of one of his men,” and it earns you zero favors as I hath recently decided to violently take your castle before seeing you turned out with your wife and sycophant counselors nipping at your bare heels. The sweet sounds of your daughter screaming at the top of her pretty lungs following you since I shall now keep her here for my amusement- for my men’s fancies who do so enjoy a laugh.”

 

A gasp parted Hermione’s lips.

 

“In the morning!” King Wendell bellowed, turning away.”You hath a fight coming for you at first light!”

 

In a furious huff, the King shook off his wife’s hold, her rational entreaty to rethink. A fresh round of yelling out his wrath waiting to leave his throat raw inside the castle keep before the arrow tearing through his jugular made the task impossible. The rules of engagement broken. The blood of her father gurgling up to spray a mist of carnage on Princess Hermione’s chest, her face, in her mouth.

 

The iron soaking her teeth.

 

The first scream ripped from her mother ricocheting through a horrified Hermione's spinal column as men surrounded them, jerked and jostled her back and forth. The yells in her ear to protect her, to avenge growing deafening. A bloom of mad chaos rapidly drifting out of control around them, and everything was colored in with the shrieking by her mother to aid the king who twitched about like a wounded bug, a broken thing, and perhaps that was how Lord Voldemort saw him. A creature in the way. A problem best crushed underfoot, and Princess Hermione clung to her mother's hand.

 

"Run," she pleaded, her father’s blood dribbling down her chin, "let us run!"

 

Yes, she was a frightened girl scrambling to get home and out of the storm.

 

A useless girl with no facts or figures to help her accept the awful truth that no longer would anyone ever say that she shared warmth with the blood-drained King Wendell, hair with curls like her springy and kind lady mother who sharply cried behind Princess Hermione- the grip on her daughter's hand going slack. The fear of what the princess suspected confirmed by looking over her shoulder, seeing squirting scarlet and feathers and wood where once her mother's left eye sat in the socket.

 

A gush after gush of orphan-making loss splattering Princess Hermione’s arm to ear, but above her teary begging, she made out Lord Voldemort’s mocking shout from below,

 

“What say you today, Princess?”

 


	2. Chapter 2

A new dawn breaks.

 

A sprinkling of spring dew on the grass.

 

A fresh head to join it, and hostages fall day by bloody day.

 

A river of red over green running wild for a month to wipe out soldier’s morale and a glance from Lord Voldemort towards his bow is enough to send Princess Hermione’s guard scrambling to defend her. A man for her life.  A pledge to protect her at all costs as if she deserves life more than all those that she’s condemned by keeping up the castle gate and Hermione coldly eyes Lord Voldemort.

 

A laugh from him. 

 

________________________

 

As the last of the Grangers in Gryffindor Hall, Princess Hermione inherited her father’s place on his massive oak throne. His crown in her lap. Their family’s position of power safely secured during chaos for her to dispassionately hold court as usual as though everyone doesn't feel the approaching singe on their skin as the world as they know it burns closer and closer around them. The lot of them only a mere spark in the wind away from feeling their flesh fall off the bone, but heaven forbid the placement of barrels in the pantry, or whether to later stock the pond with perch, go without riveting discussion.

 

“The oats?”

 

“By our estimates, they shall last two months, your highness.”

 

“The pork?”

 

“We hath salted all the stores at the castle that Lord Voldemort didst not ravish.”

 

“The pork fat?”

 

“Per your request, the drippings art henceforth used thrice before adding them to barrels for battle use.” 

 

At the end of the rapid-fire inquisition, Hermione’s slight nod politely excused her exceedingly busy castle steward to continue navigating the many odds and ends required in keeping everyone under her care clothed and fed during a crisis. The last of the day’s business tended to. The lords and ladies in the stuffy Great Hall collectively relaxing their stiff backs as supper surely nears, but Hermione’s thumb compulsively skimmed over the crown in her grip. The weeks of tension keeping her body rigid, her stomach rocked by waves as though she were drowning in a crowded room. A useless prisoner in pearls barely keeping afloat who had to watch everything important fall between her fingers while her people carried on craving honey cakes. 

 

In her state, the more she clenched her fist, the deeper the crown's metal edge etched a white line into her hand. A thinner line between rage and agony blending inside of her, but Hermione suddenly released her hold. A flex of her fingers. A snap back to calmer waters after glancing down and deciding that there was more than enough of her family's blood already splattered on the gold. 

 

A bit of her father close to her.

 

A morbid touch for a monarch currently earning enough courtly gossip for her insistence on dressing in garnet gowns during a time of mourning, but her father’s former advisors refused to bring up rules of fabric propriety with her when heads rolled in the fields. A lecture to their sole beacon of light out of the question. A temporary truce inside the castle worth its weight in coin as Lord Voldemort bled them dry in every conceivable way, and so they held their tongues. However, an approaching young knight in brilliant gold armor with ruddy cheeks and redder hair looked far less hesitant around her. 

 

“My queen,” Sir Ronald Weasley bowed in front of the throne, his chainmail-covered knee kissing the ground, “if I may have a word.”

 

“Queen?” Hermione scoffed, gesturing for him to rise. “I think we can all agree that I am nae quite queenly, but you hath my ears, Sir Ronald.”

 

From ages four to sixteen, they took lessons side by side. Their families close and their friendship closer. A total of two other people in the castle ever witnessing Princess Hermione laugh harder, speak freer than he, but the knight at the foot of his sovereign paid her respect in front of the court. A humble servant of her will. The opportunity for him to loyally argue that she had rightfully earned her title passing by them without him clinging tight, and his cornflower blue eyes gazed up at her with steady affection.

 

“I hath heard word from our allies at Ravenclaw and Badger Hall,” Ronald raised his voice for her, for the sake of the uneasy faces in the room who looked desperate for some scrap of good in their day. “They sent notice that the friendship between the houses remain true to you and committed to crushing the venomous snake in our midst.”

 

A murmur of relief rippled through the room. 

 

A change-up of hope over horrified, and for the first time in weeks, Princess Hermione’s eyes lit up with life. “How many troops come to our aid?” she asked, leaning forward. “How soon?”

 

“A month,” Ronald grinned, expecting to see its match, but when Hermione's expression lingered around unreadable, he quickly amended, “perchance less. But when the houses doth arrive, it shall be with five hundred soldiers at their backs.”

 

“A month?”

 

“A month is nae ever so long,” an elderly advisor chimed in, smiling kindly at his ruler as if she were a fussy child requiring soothing, “we hath the rations.” 

 

“Aye, but a month 'tis unacceptable, Lord Eberlie,” Hermione sharply insisted, her eyes narrowing on him before shifting their ire towards the wrongfully optimistic audience in front of her. “A month is thirty more massacred by a madman, and yet you look at me as if I should rejoice that our nearest neighbors cannot be bothered to rally when they art but a hard, fortnight ride away. A month, you say, ‘tis nae ever so long"- and I must assume that you art willing to offer yourself as one of the thirty next to perish if it means so little to you, am I correct?"

 

The loudest silence blanketed the room.

 

A drop of heavy, weighted understanding.

 

A rebuke and the return of a sickening sense of fear taking root in every last man and woman after the gawking lord predictably refused to agree to those terms, and he cowardly stepped back.

 

“Ah,” Hermione hummed, rising from her throne, “I see.”

 

A lady in waiting darted out to attend to Hermione's velvet train as the court bowed their heads, but she waved her away. The maiden dismissed back. The confused crowd glancing up from their customary kindness with a mixture of surprise and disbelief warping their expressions once they noticed a confidently alone Hermione approaching Sir Ronald Weasley, and you could have heard dust fall from the candelabras. 

 

"Forgive me, Princess Hermione,” he pled, tipping his head. “I regret to hath further disappointed you in our time of great mourning."  

 

“I am nae  _in_ mourning,” she snapped, squeezing her crown, “I am  _en_ raged.”

 

This time, the precious metal sliced her skin.

 

A trickle of blood dribbling down her wrist, the pain contorting her mouth, but she held on. A palmful of red her only point of stopping, and once she'd loosened her hold, she smeared her hand down the front of Sir Ronald’s gold armor. A loss of words from him. A collective gasp from the rest, and Hermione swung her fiery gaze around the room to quiet them.

 

“These art our house colors now,” Hermione announced, lifting her hand, “I know many whisper about my choice of wearing rubies and crimsons and reds. How imprudent of me, how improper for our little queen. But hear this loud and clear, I refuse to wear black until Lord Voldemort’s head ‘tis warm on a pike. I swear to you all that the friends of our house may come up short in times of need, but I shall never be the first in funeral shrouds because Lord Voldemort believes that what is suffering is weak, and we art anything but weak. Nae, I am defiantly red until he drips it.”

 

_____________________________ 

 

A fire crackled early in the solar.

 

A warm, cozy beginning of the night.

 

A reminder of man triumphing over the elements in the face of black, cold terror, and didn’t everyone in the castle desire a win?

 

The feathery tip of Princess Hermione’s quill flew feverishly across the parchment in front of her that night, and she rather appreciated the flame’s glow bouncing off an intricate stained glass window above her.  A halo of amber upon her head though she would not dare compare herself to an angel. Her sins too high stacked up for her curls to be considered cherubic, but Sir Ronald did not look to agree when he joined his friend for a visit in her private quarters.

 

“May God blind me,” he chuckled, dropping into space beside her on a bench, and nudging his shoulder against hers, “but I am the world’s biggest fool if you art not the most intimidating, and inspiring, person that I hath ever met- but mostly intimidating.”

 

Hermione’s quill stilled. 

 

“I am what I need to be,” she muttered, sniffed, “I can gain their love later.”

 

“Mmm,” Ronald dipped his head low, peering over her shoulder, “is that what you art scratching out now, The Later Love Me Plan?” he teased, squinting. ”’ Tis quite long...might I suggest you aim for a shorter Falling Back In Love With Queen Hermione plan?”

 

In no mood to humor his humor, Princess Hermione squeezed her eyes shut, but her mouth twitched.

 

“I can order you banished, you know.”

 

“Aye, and you should because I eat far too many biscuits. I dare say that if the plan to survive for a month relies on biscuits, it won’t work.”

 

His faux somber expression tipped the scales into silly, and Hermione clapped a hand over her mouth. A high-pitched laugh smothered against her bandaged palm, the first slip of amusement since her parent's demise, and how victorious the knight beside her looked so far away from battle. A win for the day and he’d take it. 

 

“Hath you no sense of decorum?” Hermione chided.  

 

“None, Princess.”

 

In a room so long lacking in joy, the two old friends traded smiles. A hint of their youth shared between them, their moods carefree, and how heavily their formerly easy life suddenly weighed upon those left behind to suffer the loss of it. The reminder of who else used to joke inside that very room turning Hermione’s mouth down into reclaiming a frown.

 

To protect their privacy from loose lips with large ears, she glanced over her shoulder before daring to ask, “And m-my brother, hath you any reports on Prince Harold? Didst you see a sign of him in the countryside before you came back through the tunnels?”

 

“Nae, I heard nothing about H-” Ronald heavily exhaled, the name of his closest friend unable to pass his lips, “and all I could confirm from the villagers was that they found more limbs than whole bodies near the ship’s wreckage. I fear that-” he trailed off, his nostrils flaring.

 

“What?”

 

“I fear that the reports of his death art true and that we shall possess nothing to bury but our sorrow deep in our chests.”

 

How odd that Hermione should not flinch in anguish when Ronald’s exhalations shuddered in his throat. The emotions overwhelming him, his teeth clenched to keep them in, and that was precisely why she trusted him with tasks beyond his rank. At least ten of her men could unseat fifteen other knights at a tourney, their superior skills with swords giving girls gooseflesh in the stands. But, to the objection of others, she placed her rose of favor at the feet of the rosy one. She ordered only him to use the two hidden limestone tunnels beneath the castle. If anybody could rally the troops for her, or find her brother and his dearest friend, then it was Ronald Weasley. He would rather rip out his tongue then betray her if caught, and for his love and loyalty, she placed a hand over his.

 

“You must tend to your faith, and never lose it.”

 

“Hermione-”

 

“Do not fret so, you shall venture out again in a week,” she suggested, stroking his hand, “and I know you shall find proof and relief.”

 

“'Tis impossible,” Ronald emphatically shook his head, slid his hand out from under her soothing to miserably rub a damp palm down his face. “I-I sealed the tunnels.”

 

“W-Why?” Hermione’s eyes widened. “Why didst you do that?”

 

“Pray forgive me,” he hastily explained, rising when she did, “but I too late noticed an enemy soldier in the distance watching me sneak back in. The exit compromised, and I couldst nae bear the thought of him searching and finding the other. How couldst I possibly fail you further by foolishly hoping for his lack of luck, and so I had no choice but to barricade the tunnels with stone and straw.”

 

“But how shall Harry return?”

 

The lack of response said everything, and Hermione turned away. Her hands at her temples. A wheezing parting her lips. Her vision narrowed into panicked pinpricks, but she planted her feet after turning back to face Ronald and her problems.

 

A hard breath out.

 

A release and let go.

 

“I offer you my gratitude for protecting us,” Hermione murmured, ending with hope for his sake as she could not summon it for herself.” I know what a sacrifice that was, and perhaps, Prince Harold shall rendezvous with the allied armies before his arrival."

 

__________________________

 

On a night when no one cared to be alone with their thoughts, Hermione and Ronald sat across from one another. His hold on his queen. Her fingers lightly stroking her knight.

 

A move.

 

A sacrifice.

 

A gasp.

 

“Checkmate,” Ronald purred, cracking a grin, “again.”

 

“I was meant to lure you away!”

 

“Aye,” Ronald nodded, packing up the game pieces while sounding as chuffed as Hermione was exasperated, “but you couldst only hath won if I did everything wrong.”

 

“You art impulsive when wound up,” Hermione countered, “‘tis not a complete folly to assume you slipping up after I started strong.”

 

“Aye, and now you understand that either in the game or in life, ‘tis foolish to wait for your opponent to make a mistake.”

 

In jest, Hermione pulled the bread and cheese charger away as Ronald’s freckled fingers reached for a victory bite. A short-lived celebration. A cheeky sign that even a queen of two and twenty could retreat to childishness when backed into a corner of acceptance by someone thoroughly gloating, but the sensible heart of his warning sunk in by the time a servant cleared the table. 

 

The door shut behind them, and Hermione worried her bottom lip between her teeth. 

 

“You voiced that same sentiment before in regards to the tunnels," she breathed out, color finding her cheeks, "that we can nae afford to wait for my opponent's mistakes. It...it makes me wonder if you hath heard a similar argument from my men as well."

 

"Come now-"

 

"Because believe me," she cut him off, fists balled at her sides, "I am quite aware of how bloody difficult it is for everyone when we wait, and we wait, and we stall to buy time for our defenses,” she started and stopped, placed a hand against her pounding chest before shakily continuing. “W-with every head drop, I verge near madness as our position forces us to sit idly by and slowly grow our forces against him, but wouldst my men rather sacrifice the queen to save the castle? Doth you all agree that I hath waited too long for outcomes beyond our control when my body couldst mayhaps satisfy his perversions?"

 

“Hermione,” Ronald evenly said, urging her back to calm, “I spoke generally, and nae in regards to our current situation.”

 

“But you must hear something like that voiced by others?”

 

Ronald scowled. “I care not a whit for the words of treasonous cowards and fools.”

 

A switch from paranoia back to horrified acceptance twisted Hermione’s features. “Ah, so you hath heard it….and if only it were so simple as for me to become his slave, I wouldst do it, but they underestimate him,” Hermione gasped, her eyes watering. “Oh, I swear on my bones that if I couldst but guarantee your safety by sacrificing castle and kingdom too, I wouldst in a heartbeat- but he desires more than any can ever give him.”

 

“What more can he want?”

 

“He desires unchallenged power,” Hermione exclaimed, all her logical fears and seemingly illogical suspicions rising to the surface to purge from her mouth in one breath. “I am not sure if the world hath ever seen anything like him, but I know his mind. If it fits his fancy, he wouldst torch the surrendered castle with us inside if only to prove a point.”  

 

Ronald’s brow puckered in confusion. 

 

“But why fight so long to destroy what you hath won?”

 

“It’s the fight in us that he desires to destroy!”

 

“But surely, some of us art more valuable alive if we take a knee?” 

 

 “Aye,“ Hermione threw her hands up, exasperated to have to spell it out, “but you speak of reason which he does nae care for, and he is leagues away from an honorable knight. He is the kind of brute who wouldst cut us to bits and say that he never promised not to maim.”

 

 “Oh, Hermione-”

 

As she could see Ronald stubbornly unable to accept hard truths, Hermione pushed herself up from the table. It was the abrupt end to a conversation among old friends when an out of patience monarch towered above him. The final word hers since he refused to listen, and for his sake, Hermione hoped he would stitch the words to his memory.

 

“I can nae promise what tomorrow brings for us. But mark my words, Lord Voldemort shall only stop torturing us when the castle smolders. A fire licking the walls, and him at the bottom fanning the blaze higher and higher until his name- and ownership- art written in smoke above our home to show others who wouldst fight him that he rules supreme.”

 

_________________________

 

At an hour after retiring late to bed, Princess Hermione tossed and turned. The sumptuous covers on her father and mother’s former bed abandoned to become a gorgeous heap on the ground. A thin silk sheet remaining, and though she slept naked apart from the veil on her head, she couldn’t escape from a smothered feeling.

 

A press on her chest.

 

A restless urge to go and go and go keeping her toes in motion.

 

A few hours left before moonlight traded for morning gory, and when Hermione finally drifted to sleep, the steady pressure on her psyche pinned a frown onto her features. A weight on her wrists, her thighs. A force keeping her small and in her proper place, and with a rattling gasp, her eyes fluttered open to slough off her paranoid nightmares.

 

That terrifying sensation of being buried alive, but the illusion refused to shake when Lord Voldemort straddled her waist. His fist balled and shoved into her mouth before Hermione came to her senses. Her cry lost against his knuckles. The both of her wrists bound into useless when attached to the bedpost with leather strips, and after thrashing around without him giving an inch, her watery eyes stared unblinking at an opened passageway in the wall.  
 

 

“Aww you see it, don’t you? He mocked her, dragging his teeth along her jaw.” Your little red rat dug and dug to keep me out, but in all that frantic burrowing, he never once wondered about how your father plowed village whores in this bed.”  

 

He licked her cheek.

 

A tear on the tip of his tongue.

 

"But I shall help you think of that now."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, on one hand there was far less murder in this chapter (look at me with some restraint, hah). BUT, there's also a Lord Voldemort pinning her down in her bed, and I'd love to know what you lovely readers thought about that and the chapter!
> 
> Also, this fic is now going to be 4 chapters instead of 3 (look at me failing at restraint), and I'd recheck those updated warning tags if you are the sort who is into warnings...
> 
> -Bunny
> 
> PS: May God blind me is the Medieval version of Blimey!


	3. Chapter 3

At four years old, wee Hermione and her older brother ran circles around the old wych elm trees in the Bailey. Their little hands swiping the tips of aubergine-colored leaves, and down the grey, smooth bark best used for coffins. A touch of mauve to ease the melancholy, and oh how they giggled up a storm when dashing into the kitchen.

 

A duck and a laugh around the counters. 

 

The servants continuing to rhythmically pound dough into dinner as the children played, and Ma Weasley's russet-covered head shook with disapproval. The heavily freckled baking chef rolling her big blue eyes at the rapscallions running rampant inside her pantry before she put down her roll to wiggle her wooden spoon at them. A most grieved sigh from her stretching out to epic lengths, but in the end, her mouth slipped into a smile. 

 

“Why in the devil art you two dodging around my butter?”

 

"We carry on with important business, Ma Weasley," Prince Harold announced, half of his body briefly peeking out from behind a churn that stood taller than he. "Very. Important."

 

"Oof, and what business hath you of any importance, little sir?"

 

"We hunt fairies, and unicorns, and nargles!" Princess Hermione blurted out. Her older brother shooting her a look of disbelief for so quickly outing their most secret mission, and once their eyes met, she bent over laughing.

 

"Oh dearies,” Ma Weasley joined in the laughter, pressing a hand to her mouth as her plump shoulders shook, “you shall find no fairies or unicorns in here, and what tis a nargle?"

 

"'Mione meant an eagle," Prince Harold clarified.

 

Hermione stomped her foot. "Nae, I meant a nargle!"

 

"What 'tis a nargle, pretty girl?" Ma Weasley asked, knowing better but unable to resist.

 

"I do nae know, but that 'tis why I am hunting them!" 

 

In time, they would lose their fantasies- these two baby-faced siblings who were never without the other. The both of them each four times as silly as any servant child, as carefree as can be, and perhaps that's why the cook refused to be the one responsible for crushing dreams that day. They had plenty of years ahead for hard decisions and sensibility. So, she handed the young royals each a biscuit before shooing them off.

 

"Best keep up your energy when hunting then!"

 

__________________________

 

At seven years old, Hermione sat beside her lady mother as she embroidered love into linen. A heart. A dainty rose. A long look pinned into her daughter when she again caught Hermione miserably eyeing the window instead of minding her needlework. 

 

“‘See you the Prince of Alba running around with your brother?”

 

“Aye,” Hermione murmured, obediently dropping her gaze back to her wayward designs. “Harold is showing him the choicest spot for pulling honeysuckle.”

 

“What a sweet treat for our guest.”

 

“I showed it to Harry first!”

 

Hermione’s thread snapped in half from the force of her pull. 

 

The queen’s lips trembled. A laugh at the dramatic response barely quelled, but she reigned supreme over showing her emotions. A calming dip of her pink thread back into white cloth distracting her humor. A straight and standard line to happiness effortlessly stitched into fabric that her daughter so heartily struggled with, and her mother arched a perceptive eyebrow. “Do correct me if I am wrong, little daughter, but do you fear that Harold shall nae give you credit?”

 

“Aye.”

 

“How wicked and honest you art, my love.” The queen tied off a knot, her golden scissors snipping the end. “And how disappointed you shall be if you always expect credit from kings.”

 

“They art nae kings,” Hermione petulantly grumbled, lifting her hands when her mother eased the uneven work out of Hermione’s lap and into her own.

 

“Aye. But they shall be soon.”

 

The queen finished stitching the smallest H into her daughter’s handkerchief. “Ah," she tutted, "I can hear you pouting without needing to look up, my love. But, rest assured that those foolish boys shall rule and conquer as grown men. They shall do as they please one day, and the sooner you learn to humor their selfish whims without taking every move so personally, the happier you shall be.”

 

Hermione stubbornly shook her head.

 

“Nae, I shall never settle. I shall swear Harry to be a kind king to me. A king who lets me do as I please, and refuses my hand to any insufferable men lest I hide the location of the best blackberry brambles from him.”

 

________________________

 

At one and ten years, Princess Hermione could not always be counted on schooling her features into adequately sweet on command. If it wasn’t her deepest desire to listen to a musical troop’s newest song composed in her honor, you’d likely catch her large honey-colored eyes lingering stares on the rafters above. Her lips puckered. The apathy practically dripping off of her slumped posture before a light kick under the table from her queen mother would force Hermione to respectfully remember herself, her spine straightening into enthused after the silent chiding. Her clapping at the end of the song as spirited as those around her. 

 

“How wonderful!” 

 

“Sublime!”

 

“Let us hear another!” her father jubilantly ordered, his reddened cheeks matching the wine sloshing over his goblet's rim. “And this time, I dare you to rhyme a verse with the word purple.”

 

The table roared their encouragement.

 

A merry moment as Hermione remained mum and glum. Unfortunately for her, the night held little hope for fun without Harold around to share secrets with. The young royals had always created whispered stories about the other guests. A walk around make-believe land helping them both survive the long hours of parentally-forced festivities where everyone spoke over their heads. The siblings usually preferring to stay glued at the hip and speaking to each other before others got the novel idea to speak to them as if they were four years younger, but Hermione couldn't have felt more detached that night. For at the other end of the hall, Harold shared jokes that she couldn’t hear: the boy, and his friend Ronald, pointing and snickering.

 

The role of favored family member apparently replaced by a commoner's son, and the slight stung.

 

For a naughty beat, Hermione imagined herself storming across the room and demand that Harold join her.

 

If she had her way, she’d put down her roasted partridge and hit him upside the head with a greasy wing if he dared to refuse her. She’d get to listen to him sniffling out a promise to never abandon her again. His knees on the floor; his hands raised in prayer pose. The moving scene that he’d make while desperately begging for her forgiveness miraculously stopping the selfish cheering and giggly conversations around her from uselessly chattering for a precious second, but that wasn't how princesses behaved. 

 

As the spare to the heir, she was supposed to be the bigger person.

 

To think less of her desires, her annoyances. To focus more on how best to show the family off as a unified, strong unit at all times when any of the opportunistic friends they dined with could easily turn into enemies on any given day. All arguments with her brother best reserved for far away from the ears of anyone hoping to sniff out unrest in the castle. 

 

However, the next Harold laugh ripped Hermione's paper-thin patience in half, and she slipped away from the table when she couldn’t stand it any longer.

 

The flimsiest excuse for fresh air given to her lady mother before Hermione's pale periwinkle, satin slippers scampered over sawdust to hide her tears in her room. A sheen of wet gathering in her eyes. The beginning of a flood of embarrassment dripping down her cheeks that could only sink her mood more if Harold caught sight of her blubbering before she broke free from the Great Hall, but then a tart in a pocket slowed her pace. 

 

“I saw that!” Hermione dragged back an unlucky thief’s elbow, all her pent up feelings of inferiority redirected towards thoroughly shaming an unfamiliar boy three years older than she. “How rude to snatch a tart off someone else's plate after guzzling down your own.”

 

“I-I,” the boy stammered, the shock of her speaking to him widening his coal-black eyes before they narrowed. “I did no such thing," he huffed.

 

“You call me a liar?”

 

“Nae,” he dropped his voice out of other’s hearing, a shrewd glance from him flicking around the room to suss out if the littlest royal’s accusations had garnered any unwanted attention. "But you pin an untruth upon me, princess. I didst nae have any other tarts before this one that took me ten hours to make.”

 

“You work in the kitchens?”

 

“Aye.”

 

Hermione’s mouth rounded in disbelief. “And it required ten hours to fashion a tart?”

 

“Aye.”

 

“And you ate none after?”

 

“Correct,” he spat out, jerking his boney elbow out of her hold, “that Weasley shrew forces me to fold and bang butter into pastry sheets for no less than fifty times before shoving ‘em in the ovens.  My knuckles cramping. A day's work jammed into something shaped into a fluffy goose that half the room gobbles up without a thought while I get none-”

 

“And so you took it,” Hermione finished for him. The wash of incredulity to understanding to empathy traversing her face until she’d lost all traces of fiery red accusation. Her curious smile the only fixed feature left for him to glower back at. 

 

“I only took what was mine, but denied.”

 

“Go on then.” Hermione slid her hand along the table, scooped up another tart into her palm. “Fill both pockets.”

 

The boy cautiously eyed her. 

 

The trap set in front of him too tempting to resist when his belly rumbled, but he refused to step his foot in it.

 

He liked the castle well enough.

 

It was the first warm place that he had ever rested his head at night. The hay in his bed frequently changed out, the fleas sparse, and he didn't mean to end up kicked out of the lap of luxury without a fight. “Hmm," he sniffed, mouth thinning suspiciously, "so you can rat me out for double the lashes that you’ll then laugh about with Prince Harold?” 

 

“Of course not!” Hermione emphatically shook her head. “If I were in charge, I wouldst allow you a tart after every shift.”

 

“But you art nae in charge,” he muttered, aiming a scowl over Hermione's shoulder to land upon Harold and Ronald tossing rolls at each other,” and you never shall be.”

 

The truth might not have so painfully pierced her mood on any other night. After all, it was no great secret that the laws of succession didn't favor Hermione. If, God willing, she turned out half as pretty as her mother, she'd at most be granted the exalted honor of bearing healthy babies that formed the most favorable alliances for her family. That was the best-case scenario for her future. That was her part to play, but even at a young age, Hermione refused to sell her influence so short. 

 

“Then I shall talk to father, and when I speak in your favor, he shall listen.”

 

The boy’s eyebrows lifted to his dark curls. 

 

In the market to keep secrets with someone new, Hermione met his icy disbelief with warmth. A slow-spreading smile. The cruel injustice of his situation in the kitchen earning him Hermione's silent vow to aid another in the castle who felt criminally overlooked, undervalued. And in possession of a newfound purpose, she perked up for the first time that night.

 

“Where called you home before here?”

 

The boy's Adam’s apple bobbed. “I am from nowhere.

 

“And your name?”

 

“I keep none.”

 

“Then I shall call you, Tom,” Hermione winked, stealthily depositing the second tart into his pocket when she strolled by him. "'Tis short enough for you to remember, I wager.”

 

____________________________

 

In the morning, Hermione languidly dipped her toast in a smear of sunny-side up.

 

An engaging comment never once passing her lips as her parents continued to discuss matters of importance that she failed to summon a whiff of interest on that day. The chance to state her point of view unusually passing by without her enthusiastically chiming in and the rare silence did not go unnoticed by her parents. They frequently needed to remind Hermione that children were meant to be seen and not heard, and for the second time, her father cleared his throat. 

 

“What say you daughter?”

 

Hermione lowered her toast back to her plate. “Pardon?”

 

“I asked for your opinion about the fatness of our hogs,” he evenly repeated, drew his hands farther apart to reflect their shape. “Hath you too noticed them appearing curiously fatter this summer?”

 

“Aye.”

 

The king’s eyebrows lifted. “Any guesses why?”

 

“Nae, father.” Hermione sincerely replied, but then her eyes brightened with inspiration. “However, I hath a remedy.”

 

“Oh, do enlighten us then.”

 

“I propose you shouldst deny the hogs leftover kitchen scraps- all the uneaten buttery pastries.”

 

“You suggest we allow food to go to waste?” The king’s mustache shook from his chuckle. “You would have us throw out choice scraps of hard work into the dirt?”

 

“Nae, I propose you encourage the cooks to joyfully consume any leftover pastries at the end of the day.” Hermione’s exaggerated stare followed a servant placing a fresh plate of fruit on the table between her father and her, and she paused her pitch until the servant stepped away. “It shall keep the hogs trim, and keep others in the kitchens content and far less likely to poison our picnic spread if ever a less friendly neighbor suggests it.”

 

“Ah,” the king pushed aside his plate, dusted his hands off,” a well made point.”

 

__________________________________  

 

At one and ten years- and six months- Hermione trudged through a field thick with heather and dragonflies. A steady crunch of lilac and green under her feet. The position of the sun not affecting the lanky shadow at her side since it was only her kitchen thief friend who spared few words for others while dishing out frequent scowls, and, not for the first time, he tossed out a curse under his breath when Hermione stopped to pluck a sprig of mint. 

 

She glanced over her shoulder. “What?”

 

“ _More_ mint?” 

 

“It hath many uses,” she answered in a most worldly tone for one so small. “I’m picking this bundle for your stomach ache after too many sweets, and the last for your pounding head after Ma Weasley gabs your ear off after tardiness, and the next one shall treat your upcoming venomous wound.”

 

Tom’s nose scrunched up at the end. “See you a venomous wound in my future?”

 

“Not currently,” Hermione flashed a cheeky grin, the leaves in her grip dropped into her basket, “but tis best to be prepared than bleeding out.”

 

If Tom wasn't bone tired after working a twelve-hour shift, he might have pointed out that there weren’t any venomous snakes on the castle grounds. That the fat stable cats took care of the spiders, but he kept his exhausted gob shut. Why bicker when he could rest his back comfortably against a blackthorn tree? His fingernails absently scratching his jaw. The flesh on his bones filled out considerably since first meeting Hermione, and with a full stomach, he'd found that he could occasionally relax a fraction. The ever-present tension shedding off his spine for an exhale or two as the little princess scooped up mushrooms the size of her hands- a cure or poison at her fingertips.

 

“How came you to practice witchcraft?” Tom asked, head tilted in interest.

 

Hermione gasped.“‘Tis not witchcraft, Tom.”

 

“But, you freely admit to interfering with nature’s plan.”He waved a hand at her basket.”What you gathered ‘tis intended to stop maladies, aye? To thwart a fatal wound should the moment arise? Is it not your desire then to magically deny God a death that he hath allowed to happen if it ‘tis in your power to do so?”

 

“I-I,” Hermione's mouth swung open and closed twice, her eyebrows pinching closer together. “I do not aim to thwart God,” she managed to retort through her consternation, “I merely follow the traditional soothing remedies described in father’s books. Do you not see, Tom, I can only claim a healing victory because our heavenly creator is so merciful to allow me to find one.”

 

Tom lifted a shoulder, pushed away from the tree.

 

“I am not well acquainted with his mercy.”

______________________________

 

At two and ten years, Hermione cried against her pillow.

 

A pouring out of her aching heart into silk.

 

A guttural sob after guttural sob rattling the bones in her body nearly out of her skin after she'd failed to save a sleek lark’s broken wing with a combination of ground yarrow and her tenacity. The bird stiff and dead from the effort. The loss of such an adorable life overwhelming Hermione's tender heart that night, and nobody could console her.

 

“Forgive me, little bird,” she’d pitifully pled between hiccups, lips wobbling, “Forgive my arrogance. Forgive me for delaying death and not listening earlier when Tom told me to seal your beak and put you out of your misery.”

________________________________

 

At three and ten years, Princess Hermione demured more and demanded less. The endless lessons from her mother on patience and duty finally succeeding in holding Hermione's tongue more often than not when frustration hit, and that was how she could continue casually painting a tranquil landscape scene in the drafty tower while her brother practiced sword fighting in the Bailey; a window keeping them apart. A few years- and his newly enlarged opinion of himself- furthering the distance between the siblings until Prince Harold found little time those days for gallivanting around with his younger sister. Their former bond significantly softened after it was once unbreakable steel, but fortunately for Hermione, she had Tom for amusements.

 

For if ever the long-limbed boy had a free moment from the kitchen, he would find her.

 

A match for her wit. Her curiosity. Her thirst for knowledge.

 

The key to Tom's hopes for a life beyond servitude etched into the beloved book pages that Hermine always kept tucked under her arm for light afternoon reading, and once she'd started secretly teaching him the alphabet, he’d taken to scampering off for his informal reading lessons as soon as Ma Weasley let him go for the day. The surly boy transforming into the eagerest beaver alive who always looked up in awe whenever wee Hermione explained what the curves of letters combined into. The meaning between ink blots initially resembling gibberish to Tom, but he listened and learned.

 

An apt pupil for one who loved to be listened to.

 

A teen still prone to wearing a crown of thorny resentment unless he'd snagged a second with Hermione to improve his prospects, but during those stolen moments together, Tom occasionally came off as charming. He’d compliment Hermione's cleverness. He’d selflessly crush up the most pungent herbs to repay her kindness. He’d bring her bunnies with broken legs and squirrels with ripped tails for her to tend to.

 

A grim offering to most girls, but Hermione recognized that a squirming body meant Tom had bravely forged forward into the darkest parts of the forest for her. Put himself in harm’s way to miraculously always find Hermione wounded woodland patients for her healing practice. No endgame prize for their academic pursuits, but the teens experimented with new medicinal theories as if they could change the world with their will alone. 

 

Oh yes, in sage-scented meadows, Hermione let a poor boy in a position of powerlessness dream for more. 

 

When others could not overhear them, she encouraged Tom to speak frankly as if they were equals. She'd challenge him to debate the merit of his opinions when he disagreed with her points or methods. Never once condescending down to him, and in return, Tom avoided pointing out the disparity in their social positions when the teen in her won out and Hermione would slip into whining about the horrific unfairness of her mother forcing her to embroider for an hour. 

 

No, he was her friend.

 

A friend always allows you to lower yourself when needed.

___________________________

 

At age four and ten, Tom shot up in height.

  
A late growth spurt stretching his simple servant clothing until the linen richly accentuated his trim waist, long legs, and those arms that countless hours of kneading pastry had toned.

  
The dark circles that once haunted the hollows beneath his eyes long gone, but his cheekbones remained angled as strongly as ever above barely used dimples. The last of youth slipping away over the summer to reveal something refined and jewel sharp underneath. A cache of chiseled features accompanied by a soft, full mouth, and over lessons one day, Hermione alarmingly realized that her formerly scrappy friend had become quite fetching.  

 

A boy worth a second look. 

 

  
A boy who she absolutely couldn't stare at in that way, think of in _that_ way, and Hermione's quill furiously dug into parchment.

 

The nib flying across the page. A fitting self-flagellation when her fingers ached after a few minutes, but judging by how quickly Hermione's approving gaze again hung on Tom, the punishment didn't quite reform her wicked ways.

 

_________________________________________

 

At age four and ten- and three months- Tom rolled a piece of parchment closed. He pushed his studies off the table. The abrupt sound of him quitting scraping Hermione's ears, but she didn't grimace until Tom shot up from his library seat.

 

" _What_ art you staring at, Princess?"

 

"A pissy Tomcat- "Hermione drawled, immediately abandoning the rest of her quip after noticing his jaw muscles flexing, the tendons in his neck tight and bulging. His troubled gaze jerking towards the window and her brother below. 

 

"Who told you?" he asked.

 

"Who told me what?"

 

"Was it Harold who planted seeds of distrust in your head?" Tom demanded, his rant quickening into fierce and fast when Hermione had the gall to look dumbstruck. "I reckon he blabbed his arrogant mouth the second he heard about it. Isn't that right?" Tom snarled, lips curling away from his bared teeth. "Oh, I'll throttle the teeth out of Ronald's head for running his mouth to your brother about the girl in the kitchen-"

 

"What girl?"

 

"The daft cow who stupidly slipped and smacked her hollow head on the floor when we were alone the other night!" Tom snapped, and Hermione's breath snagged in the back of her throat. 

 

It wasn't an uncommon occurrence for a sour expression to spoil Tom's features. To hear him sling out a name with exacting sharpness after he felt affronted, stepped upon. A frequently present glacial chill sealing his lips together on the worst days for him when he refused to discuss what upset him, why he’d closed up again when a yell in the woods always made Hermione feel better. But when his eyes flashed with something beyond rage, Hermione instantly realized that she’d been wrong. 

 

No, he wasn’t cold. 

 

He wasn’t distant or brutally icy when livid. When Tom truly lashed out, he was rushing lava. A winding white-hot heat living to burn down anything thriving in its path, and Hermione shrank back.

 

"I-I did nae hear about a girl getting hurt."

 

"Then why stare all afternoon at me as if her death tis written on my face?" 

 

Hermione paled. "She died?"

 

Tom's head dropped, a faint incredulous laugh from him.

 

His tongue swiping over his bottom lip once he looked up again. 

 

A little disdainful flick that meant nothing to him- meant everything to Hermione when he unknowingly pulled on her heart. The space between her thighs. Her body tight and thrumming with want when Tom brought attention to his obscenely plush mouth even while his glaring black eyes dared her to admit her low opinion of him. His hackles raised to spring right into another defensive attack. A vicious impulse in him standing armed at the ready to go for her jugular with nasty, biting words after Hermione confirmed his suspicions that she doubted him too, and she could see him waiting for the letdown.

 

Why wouldn't she take her brother's word over his?

 

Why would a princess treasure his ordinary sincerity when pearls hung from her ears, and pecan-sized diamonds glittered around her fingers? A lifetime of his wages resting on one of her thumbs.

 

No, he was surely nothing to the girl with everything. 

 

He could never offer her anything substantial beyond his company. She couldn't truly value him. As a babe pushed out of a whore of a mother's loins, Tom always understood that he'd been fated from birth to slither across the ground like an unwanted menace whose belly skimmed the stones in supplication of Hermione and her family instead of ever sitting by her side. 

 

His place beneath a royal heel.

 

His face in the dirt, but Hermione did not share his prophetic pessimism. Her fingers stretched away from her palms in preparation of gathering him into a hug and petting him into pacified because she couldn't stand the distance between them. To see him think so poorly of her- of her loyalty to him. To feel that he expected her distrust, and it spoke volumes about the madness that Tom had recently inspired in Hermione that she thought she'd possibly die on the spot if he ever understood how completely she trusted him above all others. How high she placed his good opinion.

 

"Someone perished?" Hermione spoke up instead of reaching out, clasping her hands together. "With you?"

 

"Near me," Tom hissed.

 

"I see-"

 

"Aye, and now you look at me like I'm a snake in the grass." Tom gestured at her, nostrils flaring. "Like I might come for you next."

 

"Nae, Tom," Hermione stood up, rounded the table to take his hand. "I believe it was an accident. I believe you-"

 

"Then why all the gawking?"

 

"I...I-" Hermione flinched, released his hand to avoid the humiliation of him pulling away first. "Because...because I could sooner stop the sun from burning than look away from you, Tom...because I'd have to carve my eyes out to stop."

 

Before he could reply, Hermione dashed out of the study.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I hope you enjoyed this stroll down memory lane with Hermione.
> 
> The next bit gets a bit bumpy...and bloody ;)
> 
> -Bunny


	4. Chapter 4

At four and ten years, Hermione dragged out Tom’s loudest laugh.

 

A burst of brightness at the end of a rotten day after another servant bumping into Tom caused him to burn his hand on the stove. 

 

His ridged skin aching.

 

Hermione's touch and kind eyes calming better than any salve.

 

A silly quip from her not worth gripping his sides as he doubled over, but his friend’s wit broke through the chip on his shoulder. For some obnoxious reason, the girl plum refused to let him wander back into sulking without a snicker first. A dirty word from a prim princess sending Tom's eyes rolling back into his head as she was so damn exasperating, and after tightening his bandage, Hermione declared him cured.

 

A blessed nuisance.

 

A reason for her to stay up late if a broken boy might sleep peacefully at the end of the night, but she kept that information to herself.

 

__________________________________

 

At age five and ten years, Tom brought Hermione a village child with his tongue ripped out. The sounds of his gurgling sobs bouncing up the stairs to her room. A couple of starbursts of dried blood settled into the corner of the boy's mouth who hung far too limply in Tom's arms, but the child didn't dare wipe the horror off his face when his hands were so raw and blistered. The burns on his small palms as vibrantly red with oozing yellow as Hermione had ever seen, and she froze in place after opening the door.

 

"I can nae remember what to do next!" Tom laid the boy on Hermione's bedroom furs, frantically beckoned her into action. "I put honey on his hands, but the skin keeps peeling off thicker than pastry flakes."

 

"What happened to him?"

 

"His pa lost a bet, and the winner came to collect."

 

Hermione's hand flew to her mouth. Her horror hot on her palm. The brutal act inflicted on someone so innocent rendering a nearly hyperventilating Hermione into uselessly rooted in the center of the doorway before she recovered her mind, but once she did, she dashed over to a credenza. The need to help overriding her freefall into a panic.

 

She flung open a mirrored door. 

 

Her hands rattling the glass bottles inside until she'd found a cobalt-colored one that she uncorked with her teeth.

 

"Drink this," she tipped the boy's head back, "it stings for but only a second."

 

In no position to argue, the lad did as told.

 

The willow-bark infused nectar knocking him out after four wheezing breaths, and before Tom could ask whether the brew included Mandrake or henbane, Hermione spat out the cork and scurried over to the flower pots hanging off the window. Her fingers kicking up dirt until she squeezed the fattest snail: a wet body helplessly squirming in the air for release, and Hermione granted him that gift by lying the snail in the boy's palm. 

 

A smeared trail of wet serving as an anti-inflammatory and antiseptic.

 

A cure that given time could calm the pus bubbles, but Hermione's head hung despondently after. "You have to pin the boy down, Tom." She stood up, left the snail to do his work. "Squeeze his jaw open."

 

Tom's eyes danced with inquisitive energy, the compulsive need to know, but he obediently followed directions as Hermione dragged her feet over to the hearth.

 

"You possess the magic to grow his tongue back?"

 

"Nae," Hermione flatly answered, dug her brass fire poker into the embers, "all anyone can do now is pray and burn the wound closed."

 

_____________________________

  
  


A month later, Hermione picked apples with her brother.

 

Only the orchard privy to the sounds of the sibling's steady stream of bickering and laughing below wind-shook leaves. All the random snapping noises slicing through the air whenever the prince bit into another apple, and the princess scolded him for the fifth time in an hour. "Honestly, Harry, you eat more than you pick!"

 

"I wouldst say that I pick enough to eat," Harold countered, skilfully dodging his sister's elbow. 

 

Before she got lucky and bruised his rib with her bony wrath, Harold climbed up a tree and onto a limb.

 

The hours of physical training with his father had honed the formerly lithe prince into a rather smug and nimble lion who did so love a lounge on a branch. His belly flat on the bark, his chin cheekily resting upon folded hands. His toe tip swishing like a tail before he gently tapped the top of Hermione's head with it.

 

"Oof," Hermione swatted him away, turned so that he didn't catch her smile. "I should nae hath invited you."

 

"But who else wouldst test out the fruit for you to help avoid poisoning?"

 

Hermione pointed to a badger and a herd of deer in the distance.

 

"All the  _not_ dead animals."

 

Harold snickered. "Fair point."

 

Hermione twisted an apple off its stem.

 

The silence always somehow sweeter with her brother around. A funny word never needed for them to break out into giggles again, their cheeks aching, and Hermione wouldn't have traded that lazy afternoon with him for anything. It wasn’t so often those days that they were allowed to feel childish and unburdened.

 

In only four weeks, Harold planned to set out for a strategic drill.

 

The end of his sword finally tested in field combat.

 

The enemies that he'd encounter along the way not inclined to hold back their full-strength just because he was the special one in the castle, and, unsurprisingly, all of Hermione's recent prayers had politely urged God to grant the seventeen-year-old a victory. That heart-gripping fear for his safety again pinching her brow into furrowed worry lines once she recalled him leaving to march into all the many risks awaiting him, and she sighed.

 

"Trouble not, Hermione," Harold gently reminded her, stroked her shoulder with his boot. "I can see you- again- forgetting that I am rather good with my sword these days."

 

"Aye, and so art others."

 

"But none hath such a brilliant sister who can patch them up again into brand new if some bastardy knight happens to miraculously give them a little scar."

 

"I might not," Hermione dropped her frown, teasing. "I rather fancy the nickname of The Peg Legged Prince for you."

 

"Hmph."

 

A groaning Harold pushed himself up, swung his legs around to vault off the branch. A juicy apple plucked off his former lounging limb once he’d landed, and with a flourish, he gifted the tawny beauty to his sister. A fragrant token of his affection before he threw an arm around her shoulders. "I suppose I shall allow the name if it makes you smile."

 

Hermione smirked at his proclamation. 

 

"How benevolent of you."

 

"Mmmhmm, and my generosity likely does nae surprise you since we  _all_ know that I shall one day be the best king- so incredibly giving, and humble, and blessed with a future- advisor sister who hath brains enough for the both of us so I can remain aggressively lazy while ruling." Harold teasingly bumped his hip against hers, steered them back home. "Even if she is saucy with a  _mean_ streak."

________________________________

 

"If you follow the river, you'll add another day to your trip. The pause from hiking up an incline might prove rather tempting, I imagine, but you must resist the easy path."

 

On the morning before embarking on his first military campaign, Prince Harold graciously accepted Hermione's amended maps and last-minute warnings. He swore to do as told, and he pressed a kiss to her forehead. The end of their goodbyes reached, but before Hermione released Harold from their hug, his terminally persistent sister secured confirmation that he’d sketch every new plant that he stumbled upon during his travels. 

 

He reluctantly agreed, ruffled her hair. 

 

An impish smile shot back at Hermione as he promised over his shoulder on the way out that he’d be ever so careful while hacking up their family’s enemies. But later on that night, it was the prince fervently demanding a blood promise that had everything to do with Hermione but was never intended to reach her ears.

 

"If something happens-"

 

"Nothing shall," Ronald cut off his friend’s rant, closing the stable door behind them."You ride with seasoned fighters."

 

"If something does," Harold insisted, dropping onto a cedar bench and pushing a hand through his already disheveled locks,"I need your word that you'll influence father, Ronald. If...if I perish," he looked up, swallowing hard, "father wouldst be sick with grief. In that sorry state, I couldst envision him marrying Hermione off to the first opportunistic knave who asks. You smile now, but I'm worried that my abysmal luck with a blade shall end with Hermione sacrificing her happiness for one of my father's vain attempts to lift our people's spirits after a huge loss, and I refuse to accept him choosing a match for Hermione that rests far beneath her station, or intellect."

 

Ronald puffed out his cheeks, shook his head.

 

"And why shouldst a king take the counsel of a knight in training?"

 

"Because he knows how close our bond is. That 'tis why you  _must_ stress that a swift marriage goes against my wishes. You plead my case when I can not, and then you suggest the best man that you hear of for Hermione- Ron, I can nae say enough how vital it is to push all your weight upon my father’s soft heart."

 

"I shall try."

 

"Good." For the first time in hours, Harold’s posture relaxed. The weight of the world lifted off his shoulders, and he could finally lift his head. “Good.” 

 

“I pray that you art wrong about your father though.”

 

“As do I, but I dare leave nothing to chance."

 

Harold leaned back, his head softly thunking against the wall behind him.

 

His big green eyes closing for a deep inhale to longer exhale.

 

"We used to be two halves of a whole, Hermione and I,” Harold's tone dipped into reflectively soft when he spoke up, a slow-growing smile raising the corner of his lips. “When I picture my future, I hear her guidance at my side. I see a circlet of rubies upon her head, a supportive smile at the ready. 'Tis so clear in my visions that she receives a world of peace and contentment in her future, and yet I hath too often noticed a tortured frown finding her features this year.”

 

Ronald nodded. “Aye, I noticed that too.” 

 

“I-If I hath been the source of those ill moods...” Harold rubbed a hand across his mouth, miserably shook his head. “'Well, 'tis my deepest wish now to make amends for it. I can nae change that I should hath been a more reliable friend, but perhaps I can help her even if I happen to accidentally house a sword in my belly.”

 

“You art a good brother to her.”

 

"Then be a good brother to me and swear it." Harold unsheathed his sword from his scabbard, ran his palm over the tip. A fault line full of blood splitting his skin open, and he extended his slippery hand towards the bravest boy he knew. "I must have you swear it."

 

Without a second's hesitation, Ronald nicked his palm, clapped his hand against Harold's.

 

"I swear to keep mine eyes on her, and mine ears out for her best prospects."

_______________________

 

At nearly four months after Prince Harold left, Hermione couldn’t stop screaming.

 

Her fear wide-eyed. Frantic. Helpless.

 

The sickening crack of Ronald’s nasal cartilage crunching beneath Tom's knuckles turning Hermione’s head in disgust, but she couldn’t run away to save her stomach. She could only listen to the wet smacks in the rain. The brutal blows pulling Ronald's skin away from the bone increasing to the point of mayhem, and outside of the chapel Hermione prayed for mercy. 

 

“Please stop, Tom-”

 

“Not until he takes it back!” 

 

“I’ll have your head first!” Ronald shouted, hunched over in pain. “Ye' bastard!”

 

The insult triggered a roar, and the taller teen launched forward to tackle Ronald to the ground in retaliation. In three quick moves, Tom's arm braced across the other boy’s chest, his knees restraining Ronald into helplessly pinned down. A fresh rain of rapid-fire punches pounding into the softest part of his enemy's belly until liquid bubbled between the redhead’s lips with no place left to go-his once brash braggings becoming bloodied beggings to stop, and Ronald's feet spasmed.

 

“Take it back,” Tom snarled, holding his fist high. “Take it back!”

 

“Please, Tom, he’s sorry!”

 

“I do nae hear it from him!”

 

When Tom swung his head back towards Hermione, she felt the wind kicked out of her. A feral ugliness had distorted his lips into an enraged curl, his pupils were blown wide. He looked a good deal more beast than boy and Hermione couldn’t predict how he’d act, or if he’d quit. All she could do was instinctively match his recklessness by springing forward to tug on his arm. Her dainty slippers uselessly sliding over the damp grass as Tom remained hardened stone stuck in place. 

 

“Please, Tom," she shouted, pulling harder. "He can nae speak!”

 

“Why shouldst he be allowed to speak after laughing at you!”

 

“He only voiced what was true,” Hermione choked out, her fingers desperately clawing into Tom's bicep, “It was no disparagement on my character! I  _am_ property of the crown, and it was absurd of me to bring up happening to fall in love as if I can,” she sobbed. “I-I do nae get to pick my husband, Tom. The choice is out of my hands, and one day someone  _shall_ bid handsomely enough to pass me from one house to the next as if I were a pair of candlesticks." 

 

“You art better than that!”

 

“Not in anyone else's eyes!”

 

Tom loosened his grip on the battered boy beneath him. 

 

A turn away from violence and into reassurance, but Hermione stumbled back before he could get a word out. Her head full of loss. Her dress soaked in mud. A pitiful picture dropping tears lost in the rain who couldn't run away fast enough from foolish boys who think they know everything.

 

______________________________

 

At age six and ten, they met in hidden hallways and behind bales of hay. 

 

A promised lesson.

 

A lingering kiss.

 

A laugh from him whenever Hermione swears that it’s the last time.

 

The funniest refrain falling off of peach-soft lying lips that can't keep away for longer than a day, and how could Tom believe her then. In the blink of an eye, they'd evolved ever so effortlessly into intimacy. The secrets they kept from others changing but adding with frequency. The desire for Tom to possess her in all ways overriding the wise sense to stay away and save his neck from a noose even if nobody looked at him the way Hermione did, and after laying her down on a bed of straw in the stables, Tom walked his fingers down her chest. 

 

A pull at her ribbons. Her sanity.

 

A pretty little loosening that could rip a moan out of her lungs when he bent down to lick her.

 

“I pray that you always lie so prettily with me,” he breathed out, his tongue circling her nipples into hardened nubs. A peak to latch onto. A pink pleasure point to pull and punish and pinch between his teeth until she curled her fingers in his hair.

 

Her breast rising against his mouth, thighs inching up his hips.

 

Her body longing at every pressure point to feel the scrape of his teeth on her skin.

 

That edge of euphoria that only he could inspire with a flash of pain doubling pleasure, and he gave her both in spades. His free hand working between her thighs. A whispered promise from him to let her suck her cunny cream off his cock after she rode him, and Hermione's lashes fluttered closed.

 

“Oh-” she gasped, turning her cheek,” the things you say.”

 

“The things you inspire me to say.”

 

Oh, how he adored her openly indecent.

 

The sun on her shoulders.

 

A wild creature under his thumb

________________________________

 

At seven and ten, Hermione counted the neat stitches on her dress hem. A row of red stabbed into white. A terrible excuse to refuse King Wendell’s gaze as he generously listed potential suitors during their afternoon stroll, and he cleared his throat for the second time. 

 

“What say you, daughter?”

 

“I say that I am grateful, but not ready.”

 

“Hmm,” King Wendell nudged his daughter’s chin up with his fingers. A gentle push so she would at least face him down if she intended to let him down. “I hath heard as much from you for two years now.”

 

“Aye, and it pains me to disappoint you,” Hermione somberly nodded. “However, I feel as I did before.”

 

“I hath it in writing that the Price of Alba offers you multiple hours per day to read all the scrolls and maps required to stimulate your inquisitive mind.” The King fondly squeezed his daughter’s chin, his eyes twinkling instead of scolding. “He hath also sworn to never criticize your embroidery- which you must admit is a massive concession.”

 

Hermione cracked a smile. “How considerate.”

 

“Think of how much that silence shall cost him for years to come...is that not enough power for my clever lamb?”

 

“I do nae desire power.”

 

The King dropped his hand, cocked his head to the side in consideration. “What doth you desire?”

 

_A boy with hands and muscles grown strong from kneading bread._

 

_A boy who understands the want for a life less ordinary._

 

_A boy you wouldst never approve of._

 

The confessions throbbed beneath her ribcage, a tapping demand begging to be freed.

 

The time as good as any to come clean, and Hermione took a deep breath to buoy her courage.

 

“I can nae rule,” Hermione’s voice came out weak, her eyes turning glossier with every unfair word. “I can nae become a paid healer, or fight for our family and so I wouldst prefer to taste at least a small slice of happiness with a husband who I connect to. I want something honest.”

 

She rocked uneasily from foot to foot. The request outrageous. The voicing of her hopes aloud ringing as silly even in her own ears since her father’s political connections surely outweighed any fanciful illusions of marriage as a love bargain in her future, but her father wasn’t used to a weepy Hermione. The sound of her desperate sorrow didn’t settle well in his stomach, and to keep his beloved girl from further flipping his heart around, he merely sighed.

 

“Then I shall endeavor to find you someone one who inspires your warmest regards,” her father offered his arm to her, led them out of the hall and into the light. “At least for one more year...”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter got so darn long that I had to split it into two. The next chapter should be up quicky, but I'd love to know what you thought about this one- the one with some rolling in the hay smut, hah.
> 
> -Bunny


	5. Chapter 5

At age seven and ten, Princess Hermione lingered at the Great North Window.

 

A faraway look glazing over her eyes as tangerine and teal-tinted fractals danced colors upon her wrists. Her hands wringing in front of her. The stained-glass light reflecting pretty patterns on her unconscious movements as she looked on reflectively, but she only had eyes for the Blue Ridge in the distance. That safest way back home for Harold that lay hidden among the bluebells and a split creek, and they both knew that slice of land backward and forwards. 

 

It was the very same path that Prince Harold was supposed to have returned on a few months earlier but his newest letter confirmed that he’d not travel over it again for a year later, at least.

 

So, Hermione kept her daily vigil.

 

The girl had always prided herself on her constancy.

 

How could she not after loving for years without hope?

 

______________________________  

 

On an evening when drunk royal revelries bled into early morning hours, Hermione feigned tiredness to her well-in-their-cups parents. An exaggerated yawn twice added in before her mother picked up the cue and suggested retiring poor Hermione to her room, but once she reached her quarters, the princess discarded her gown and pinned her braided hair close to the scalp. A few tufts of curls sticking out. The look not intended to win her any more compliments that night, but Hermione cared only to appear less like a misbehaving princess and more like a forgettable boy out for a tipsy swim in the midnight-blue moat water. 

 

As luck would have it, the guards at the top of the castle paid her and her taller companion no mind when they crossed the drawbridge, sat on the edges of the marshy banks on the other side. A tranquil resting of Hermione's cheek on Tom’s bare shoulder for a minute before she slid into the water while wearing a borrowed pair of his trousers and a linen shirt.

 

“How’s the water?” Tom whispered when Hermione’s head bobbed back up to the surface, one of his feet and then the other shucking off his only pair of shoes that he couldn’t afford to ruin. “Devilishly cold?”

 

“N-n-no,” Hermione laughed through her teeth chattering. “It’s p-p-perfect.”

 

Tom carefully hid his shoes and long-sleeved shirt in the thickest grass. “You art a terrible liar.”

 

“Come punish me then.”

 

The wink sealed her fate, and Tom smoothly dove into the moat. He circled her legs. His hands running up between her thighs and to the outside. A hard pinch on her rear eliciting a Hermione yelp, and when Tom emerged, he captured the sound with his mouth.

 

His freezing lips shivering against hers from kiss to shaky kiss. Their in-between breathing puffing white into the air as they tread frosty water that stung their legs, but the young couple warmed soon enough. The cold easily forgotten when they had each other and their hands that moved from cheek to chest to spine with need and need and need until Hermione pulled away.

 

“Mmm,” she tipped her head back, sucked down a deeper inhale, “what a rough punishment. I am sure that I shall never sin again.”

 

Tom smirked. "My work here is done."

 

He abruptly released her waist from his grasp, leaped away to start swimming. His strokes gracefully precise, twice as long as hers, and Hermione barely heard him in the water. As she fumbled around smearing wet off of her lip with the back of her hand, her thief in the night moved in harmony with his surroundings before he stopped to steal her breath without touching her. Her poor lungs no match for the moonbeams bouncing off the water that scattered stars across his black as night eyes when he looked back over at her. His dark curls slicked back, his features untouched by tension and it didn't seem fair to love him so. 

 

To feel so blessed.

 

A sudden vision of them together every night- and far far away- proving too tempting to banish from her thoughts once it pushed its way in, and she couldn’t stop smiling.

 

"Run away with me," Hermione blurted out, swimming over to him. 

 

"Run away with you?" he repeated, and it wasn't the moon that made Tom's skin look paler, but he wore a convincingly sly grin by the time she reached him. "How about I race you to our island instead?"

 

"What island?" Hermione struggled to keep up with her slippery Tom once he took off. "Where is it?"

 

"Look to where the bulrush rises!"

 

"The bulrushes-" Hermione cut off her befuddled shout, left behind her confusion to kick harder underwater to gain on him. Their cupped hands digging in on each powerful stroke into the moat’s surface until they exhaustedly tapped their toes upon a hidden mound of land in the center of the water. The cat-like tails of the, as promised, bulrushes swaying around them when a slightly winded Hermione realized that she no longer needed to swim to stay head and shoulders out of the water, and she gawked. "Upon my word…"

 

"Welcome to our island." 

 

A spinning Hermione marveled at the reveal, giggling. "My apologies for not visiting more often."

 

"You art forgiven."

 

"What a generous king you’d be."

 

It was only a teasing hypothetical, but Tom drew her close. His hands framing her hips. His forehead devotedly pressing against hers before he dipped down to spread ardent affection down her neck. To breathe her in. A deeply content inhale of everything good and Hermione and his that could only be cut off by the feel of her hand skating down his abs to move between them. Her frisky fingers parting his linen coverings to surround his cock, glide up until his jaw slackened. The water around them softly lapping against Tom’s bare chest when her motions quickened, he thickened, and Hermione’s lips curled up into deliciously smug.

 

"Run away with me," she whispered, circling the base of him like he liked, shooting a wicked glance towards the soldiers above who saw nothing amiss.

 

A groaning Tom tucked his head against the curve of her shoulder to hide what she did to him- how she made him feel.

 

His breathy answer beating against her skin as she beat him off.

 

"Hermione…" Tom scolded. Begged.

 

"Tom…"

 

He hissed from want when her grip tightened, his front teeth sinking into the plush center of his lip instead of responding. The subject soundly dropped in his mind when her hand held him captive and carnal, but his determined girl expectantly looked up at him. Her huskiest voice reminding him between raunchy- wonderful- motions that they could do this every day. That she could run her tongue down his shaft until he became stickier than toffee.

 

That she'd lick it all up anyway. 

 

A new night ushering in new ways to please him, to praise him as a sweet little wife should, and didn’t he deserve that? 

 

The chance to take their time.

 

An opportunity to ravage each other for hours far away from any guard’s sight line- or nearer if he fancied that too- and the hard shiver battering Tom’s spine had nothing to do with the cold that time. Keeping an arrogant eye on the clueless soldiers, Tom thrust into her hand. The end of him approaching on his terms. The taut muscles in his throat straining against his skin, and when his hips stuttered as Hermione begged him to coat her fingers, Tom left a moan on her neck.

 

A suck and bite into something red and angry and all his.

 

“Nae, you must stay,” he breathlessly insisted, heart hammering in his chest. “ _You_ belong here. _I_ belong here.”

 

_____________________________

 

At least once a week, Hermione endured teasing about her living her life with her nose wedged between pages; that familiar family joke rather low hanging fruit when she couldn't disagree, wouldn't change her habits. Her craving for textual escapism unlikely to drastically abate when the rest of her routine-driven world so thoroughly bored the princess. An epic battle on the page sparking far more interest than any lesson on proper fork etiquette, and Hermione couldn't be bothered to believe that indulging in reading too often was all that odd an activity when nobody studied harder than her best friend. Yes, when he was allotted time to think for himself for a few spare hours every day, her Tom sponged up knowledge.

 

He'd neatly compose healing theories until he ran out of parchment.

 

He'd read until his eyes ached, two fingers pinching the arch of his nose to clear his head before trudging through one last line.

 

A little pain always worth soldiering through for him if he intended to learn everything there was to know about anything, and Tom remained steadfast and committed to the impossible cause. Out of anyone else’s earshot, he’d ask Hermione questions upon questions about rulers present and past. He’d study landscapes and lyrics and lessons, and even when she could entice Tom to exchange the stuffy indoors for the great outdoors, he’d still use the change in scenery as an opportunity to inquire about Prince Harold’s favored fighting drills. 

 

Armed with a stick in his hand, he'd strike and dodge per Hermione’s suggestions. 

 

A push and jab to better himself.

 

The tireless repetitions over the years eventually smoothing out his clunky footsteps until Hermione swore that his fighting form matched Harold's, and thanks to her advice, Tom inevitably mastered the optimal sword swipe against a tree foe. He’d hacked and hacked and improved. He’d put in the work to excel beyond measure, and each time that Tom defied his humble beginnings, Hermione plumped up with a feeling of importance.

 

How could she not preen like a peacock when someone hung on her words and observations and succeeded?

 

The world his oyster once Tom dove into any subject, and even his formerly hard accent had softened over the years into closer to fine. Yes, while nobody paid attention to the lanky kitchen help in the castle, he’d changed little by little into something else entirely. He’d echoed the royal family’s mannerisms, their skills, and that constant drive to improve himself inspired Hermione to question and imagine "a life beyond what we know" along with him. 

 

She could see anything becoming possible when matched with his work ethic, his passion.

 

How could she then ever imagine a fulfilled future that didn’t place her right beside a man who possessed such unlimited talents and charm and promise?

 

At the end of another afternoon of traipsing in the woods with her favorite person in the world, Hermione parked her perky rear onto a tree stump. The rucksack at her feet stuffed with foraged herbs and flowers. The occasional whistle of Tom's arrows whizzing through the forest canopy breaking up her whispered archery encouragements, but Hermione enthusiastically beamed up at him with each near hit. All the technical tips from her eventually leading to a sharpened tip dropping a pheasant from the sky, and nearly bursting with pride, Tom thrust back Hermione's solid gold and white leather quiver into her hands.

 

"I told you! I told you I wouldst snag one even with that bloody sun in my eye!"

 

"Aye, that you did," Hermione stood up, stretched her back from side to side before threading her fingers between his to jointly collect their prize, "and I always believed you could."

 

He winked. "How wise you art."

 

"How foolish ‘tis any person who doubts your convictions.”

________________________________

 

At the age of eight and ten, Hermione’s back scraped against a fence post at the edge of the forest. 

 

Her arms bound behind her, ermine-trimmed dress rucked up to her waist. The option of feeling ashamed- or nervous when she was bared to the hips for anyone to see- sunk by eyes the color of sticky tar that fixed her in place while Tom generously feasted between her thighs. A hard suck and swirl and savoring. 

 

A devoted worshipping on his knees for an inconsolable princess who sobbed for his mercy: one teary humbling request for him to stay after another falling off her lips after he’d confessed his intentions to leave at first morning’s light to seek his fortune. His mind made up no matter how hard she pouted, but Tom had sworn to give her this first.

 

A fall from Grace as he supported her.

 

A knee-quaking reason to think fondly of him throughout their separation and Hermione stubbornly shook her head.  “Please-"

 

"Hermione-"

 

"P-please stay-"

 

“You art mine,” Tom exhaled against her folds, leaning in to smear her over his cheeks. "Say it."

 

When Hermione couldn't speak through a cry, Tom released her thigh. He snaked his calloused hand up her body. A tease over belly and breast before resting a hold on her slim neck. A flex of his fingers there. Her breath snagging at his will, and Tom took the opportunity to force his thumb between her open lips. His nail dragging against her tastebuds. The tears dropping faster down Hermione's cheeks that hollowed to suck him into her, and she couldn’t get enough. “I am yours,” she raggedly moaned, rolling her head back. "I am all yours."

 

How easy it was to surrender to Tom. 

 

Her legs quivering into barely standing. A splash from her pulsing cunt dripping off her lover's lips to saturate his chin as Hermione kept crying out for him to touch her right there, take care of her forever, and Tom stood up with a groan. His girl's affection glistening shiny on his features. His cock heavy in his hand as he pumped it twice more, let her hear the obscene sound of skin on skin before he roughly pushed himself between her legs. The pounding in the woods that followed fit for a common tramp earning her coin and Hermione pled for the debasing. She’d do anything to feel cheap and ordinary and free to love him. A wanton woman only desired for her body instead of her title.

 

A simple girl with everything screwed into common indecency. 

 

__________________________________

 

At age eight and ten, Hermione kissed Tom.

 

A frantic, mournful mouthful.

 

A last goodbye tucked away in a castle alcove as if what they shared deserved to stay dark and shameful. A secret that couldn’t ever live in the light, but around the corner, Ma Weasley happened to overhear Tom’s low promise between caresses that he'd find a way for them. 

 

That he’d elevate his station. 

 

That he’d return to claim what was rightfully his, and though Hermione breathlessly swore that she believed him, she clung to his chest when he pulled away.

 

"I shall return," Tom uncurled her fingers from his cloak, lifted her hand to his mouth to kiss the center of her palm. "You know that aye?”

 

“I feel it true.”

 

____________________________________

 

A year after he left the castle, a bottle tumbled out of Tom’s hand. A single iridescent glass full of expensive tincture breaking into worthless shards on the ground at his feet. A most expensive mistake that jerked up his master’s head from the back of the shop, and the elderly apothecary gruffly shouted at his apprentice to watch his hands. A rebuke so swift and laced with loathing that it could have turned another man’s blood into sludge, but what could a humiliated Tom hear that wasn't the trumpeters outside who blared blessings for Princess Hermione’s betrothal to the Prince of Alba.

 

An ideal match.

 

A proper union worth celebrating.

 

A reason for the townsfolk in the street to cheer and cheer over Tom being kept in his place and their deafening celebration of his loss cut deeper than the glass edge that sliced into his palm when his master forced him to distractedly clean up all that had shattered. 

 

A servant forever squirming under the whims of a rich man.

 

_________________________________

 

At two and twenty years, a naked Hermione lay pinned beneath her lover. 

 

His scarred hand wedged her mouth. Her breathing labored against it. Her panic growing all the more extreme when her hands and emotions were tied into a hangman's knot, and though it hadn’t worked before, Hermione screamed.

 

Her spittle frothing in his palm.

 

Her head thrashing from side to side.

 

“Aww you see it, don’t you? He mocked her, dragging the edge of his teeth along her jaw.” Your little red rat dug and dug to keep me out, but in all that frantic burrowing, he never once wondered about how your father plowed village whores in this bed.”  

 

He licked her cheek.

 

A tear on the tip of his tongue.

 

"But I shall help you think of that now."

 

A sob shuddered against his knuckles, and Lord Voldemort’s answering low laugh vibrated against Hermione's chest as he hovered over her. He was on her, in her, and crushing her spirit. A cruel smile added into the mix to muddle her mind, and Hermione hated that he fed so richly off of her suffering when all she could do was bleat like an injured lamb before the slaughter. "Aaah, naughty girl," he snagged her earlobe between his teeth, savagely tugged her back to facing him. "We must keep our voices down," he cooed, releasing her flesh, "like old times."

 

An enraged Hermione cursed him to Hell.

 

Her chest heaving.

 

Her vision dotting.

 

_A plan._

 

_A plan._

 

_I need a plan._

 

_How doth I convince him to set me free?_

 

“Or if you prefer to remain a loud little goose,” Lord Voldemort mused, his breath warm and derisive on her flushed cheeks, “you leave me no choice but to order my man in the hall to slit your guard’s throat. Is that what you prefer, Princess?”

 

A wider smile pulled his lips away from his gums after he'd dropped another life into her hands.

 

A fresh death on her conscience.

 

The fortieth reason to keep her banished out of Heaven’s gates and Hermione feebly shook her head. It revolted her very being to give in without taking something from him in return, but she couldn't stop repeating the guard’s name of Lee on a loop in her head that was already running a mile a minute. Lee was a good man. A chatty friend. A loyal subject. A tangible reason for Hermione to keep her cool when she yearned most to burn the world down starting with her bed, and once she'd decided to resist fighting for her life to save another, Hermione couldn't stop shivering.  

 

It had dawned on her that she would die quietly. 

 

Not on a battlefield. 

 

Not defending her lands. 

 

But in bed. 

 

A silent death beneath a floral canopy that felt tailor-made for someone wrinkled and brave who had earned a comfortable way to go. An anticlimactic end meant for a monarch who mattered- who gave everything she had first before going quietly into the night- and that wasn't her. No, the insult of Hermione obediently agreeing to submissive suffocation triggered a fight or flight response in her that soared even after her captor thought he'd clipped her wings, and her body rioted without a wail.

 

The bed frame creaking beneath her trembling limbs.

 

All delusions of her miraculously persuading the person with all the power in the room to do anything she wanted stripped away when she couldn’t stop gasping like a pitiful fish on land even after he removed his hand from her mouth, but Hermione didn’t stop fighting. It wasn’t in her nature anymore to passively bend over backward to allow someone to walk over her wants and needs. She didn’t bow for anyone, and so, her thighs shifted with no place to go. Her knees bounced before Lord Voldemort slotted his leg between them. 

 

The weight of his body pressing down on her, and when they were eye to eye, he sympathetically shushed her.

 

“Be calm,” he combed his fingers through her hair, ”shh.” 

 

A slap, she’d expected. A condescending demand to come to her senses, perhaps, but Tom calmed her with the same motions that used to soothe her as a blubbering girl crying about unfairness against his shoulder. He tugged gently on her hair. A comforting hum to relax whispered near her ear. His fingertip lullaby rhythmically massaging against her head until Hermione's eyes lulled into half-closed, but the man pulling at her strings moved on instinct instead of kindness.  

 

Why couldn't he suffer through a few seconds of softly stroking a distressed doe's cheek before lodging the knife into her heart? 

 

The meat infinitely more tender between his gnashing canines when not hardened from shock, and so the selfish hunter adoringly pet his Hermione as he had with many others before his blade dropped to sever their scalp from sense. He played with a handful of her curls at the nape of her neck. The maple-sweet tendrils wrapping around and around his fingers until a light jerk on her hair brought Hermione’s mouth up to graze his. A whisper of her name parting his lips open, and just when Hermione thought she couldn't sink any lower down the food chain, her muscle memory sickeningly betrayed her.

 

For a wretched heartbeat after their eyes met, her body forgot to hate him.

 

The dark stubble dusted over his jaw and the jagged scar etched from his cheek to nostril were new, but his eyes were Tom’s: the color of coal but fiery when above her.

 

Up close, he smelled of Tom. The fresh mud and blood splattered on his clothing unable to mask the familiar scent of mint from the fields crushed between his teeth.

 

His knee sliding up between hers was all Tom too.

 

A naughty press for something he didn’t deserve. A suggestive push forward inviting a bound ruler to grind her sex against his suede trousers for a moment of relief outside of her body- her clit encouraged to smear over all lines of decency in the sand if she would only arch up against him. Let go. Let him pleasure her into forgetting her worries. Her choppiest exhale fanning over his mouth making it abundantly clear to both of them that the tensest woman alive badly needed to be unwound by a hard fuck when even the leg of her enemy would do- and wasn’t it a pity that when Hermione’s reflexes let her down, she fell into old habits.

 

Her thighs spreading for him. 

 

Her mouth hanging open. 

 

All those gorgeous lightning sharp, electric feelings of desire zipping through her body, and every last little tingle summoned by someone who’d trained her to give into _him_ , taught everything sexual to her. The only man who'd ever mined her curves and climaxes for all they were worth, and the second that Hermione's hips greedily rocked against him in response, she’d never hated herself more. 

 

_How can you want him?_

 

_How can you lower yourself for the monster who butchered your parents?_

 

Her integrity sacrificed for a satisfying slide of her cunt back and forth against him. The whimper breaking free from her mouth instantly shredding up her insides, and by the rounding of Lord Voldemort's eyes, he'd never felt prouder watching someone stumble. “Oh, I wondered if your lying little cunny ever missed me,” he chuckled, circling his knee again and again against her clit even after she'd gone still, “and I suppose we hath our answer."

 

He felt so horrifically good against her.

 

His hand heavy on her hip.

 

Her nipples taut and crossing his heart.

 

The worst of his crimes unfairly forgiven by her body that traitorously melted under his dominance, pooled a spot of sticky sweet shame on his trousers with every maddening stroke, but just as swiftly as Hermione cut loose, she cut him back. He believed her weak for him, and she angled her foot to slice her toenail against his ankle. A warning. The most pitiful offense imaginable, but her wincing torturer instantly shifted his knee off of her. "Ah," he grunted, pushed her face away, “so much for your mother's favorite advice to comport yourself with dignity among your betters."

 

“Unbind my wrists,” Hermione laughed, baring her teeth, “I’ll do _better_ at carving up your face with my nails.”

 

He critically stared at her for a moment, lips fixing into a thin line. 

 

“My the years hath hardened you, haven’t they?” 

 

"I wonder what caused that."

 

“You were once so supple," he wistfully sighed, patronizing her, "but, alas, now you carry on like a silly polished pearl who thinks she knows what a kill feels like although she’s never so much as wet her feet outside of her comfortably tiny tidepool.”

 

"What I _know_ is the truth that you art only ever fated to rule over your own misery." Hermione licked her lips, her eyes wild when she took her turn with wounding him. "That’s your legacy, _Tom_. There’s no amount of stolen titles or castles or lives that you can acquire that shall ever fill up the cavern of bitter insecurity eating away inside of you. The nagging void in your gut that’s always reminded you at your highest moments that you don't belong anywhere- that nobody wants you- and now you hath ensured that end with your actions."

 

All former amusement drained from Lord Voldemort’s features.

 

A muscle in his cheek twitching once before he crisply spoke. 

 

"How long hath you waited to say that to me?" 

 

"Since you wed Lady Lestrange,” Hermione replied, tipping her chin defiantly up, “and I realized that I could hath been anyone to you as long as I was a stepping stone on your climb up to a throne."

 

The hypocrisy and her self-righteous glare unleashed his rage, and Lord Voldemort’s hands shot out to cut off her taste of victory. His fingers fastening around her throat until they met in the back. A cruel pumping squeeze between each hissed word. “Doth. I. Need. Remind. You. Of. Your. Feckless. Fiance. Or. When. You. Slumber. On. Your. Maggot-eaten. Parent’s. Sheets. Doth. You. Remember. Well. Enough. What. Your. Impatience. Earned. You?"

 

He wrung her neck until the whites of her eyes shined. 

 

Her freckled cheeks flaming cherry red.

 

Her bubbling gobs of spit crackling against her tongue before he spread his fingers wide enough apart to hear her pained answer leaking through.

 

"A-At least...I-I...didst nae follow through...with the betrothal."

 

"The consideration was enough to end us!”

 

The shout echoed in the room, but just as quickly, Lord Voldemort abruptly released her throat. He sat back on her thighs as she gagged and coughed. A frustrated growl huffing out of him when he pushed a hand through his hair. A far more comfortable cold and calculating mask slowly shifting back into place over his features after his outburst of vulnerability, and he silently massaged his palms with his thumbs. A passing glance from him over to the angry purple welts blooming up to the surface of Hermione's skin, but he showed no regret before he dismissively gestured at her body. 

 

“But I couldst hardly marry you now, can I?” he tilted his head, tutted. “Oh, I am sure that I wouldst always bid adieu to the night awaiting a vindictive blade wedged into my heart before morning. What a shame, really. I am already profoundly bored with sharing a bed with a melancholy wife who constantly weeps and whines over her dearly dead daddy while fucking me, but 'tis impossible to trust your fickle love again. Mmm...that's why I suppose we shall keep with the plan of chaining you up for my nightly rutting, don't you agree?"

 

“‘How dare you-”

 

“A nice view of you enslaved and perched by my feet during the day when I sit upon your throne-”

 

"I loved you!"

 

"Not enough," he blandly replied.

 

"Oh!" Hermione pulled at her restraints. “You art a vile bastard-”

 

“Oh, _that_ I am,” he ducked his head down, sensually nuzzled his nose against her cheek, “and I might hath been conceived as such right _here_ in this bed like you were.”

 

“Liar!”

 

“You’d like to think so, wouldn’t you?" Lord Voldemort held her gaze. "But how doth you reckon I knew which tunnel led to your father’s chambers?” 

 

When a sarcastic smirk didn't follow afterward, Hermione flattened back against her pillow. The wind kicked out of her. The sensation of toothy bugs burrowing down into her skin making her want to squirm away from her bones as the obvious answer to his sick question blared on repeat in her mind, and she couldn’t believe she’d been so ignorant.

 

What a luxury, Hermione thought, to have witnessed Tom’s cruelty and callousness and assumed for all those years that she alone stood immune. To naively make excuses for each ugly moment when he'd shown zero regard for the welfare of any other human or beast, and call those obscene lapses in behavior "moments born from passion" instead of a core part of his nature. But she saw him plainly then. It took long enough, but she realized that there wasn't a limit to just how far he'd go to destroy everything she held dear in her life after feeling wronged by her, and a fog of anxiety coated the inside of Hermione’s chest. On reflex, she couldn't stop questioning everything she thought she knew about herself, her home and him, and the nastiest fingerlings of doubt pumped toxic darkness into her lungs until she struggled to catch her breath.   
 

“No….no,” she adamantly shook her head, voice cracking, “he was a good man.”

 

“Your father was a foolish coward who appreciated a warm bed with a seasoned woman.”

 

Hermione’s mouth wobbled. 

 

“And you lay with me knowing that?”

 

“I had my suspicions,” Lord Voldemort flatly replied, looking away, “and my anger at you all.”

 

A quiet beat settled between them.

 

A brief reprieve from the war, and nobody celebrated.

 

“You were enough as is Tom,” she reluctantly murmured, needing for him to hear it as much as she needed to hear someone say it, “you need not hath hoped for another name to be great. I can only imagine how strong was the temptation to give credence to castle rumors that promised a change in station for you, but I believe in my father's goodness. If he possessed a weakness for women, and you were born his son, he wouldst have provided for you.”

 

Lord Voldemort dragged his eyes back to her.

 

“Hmm,” he hummed, seeming to weigh her words. “How I wish that I couldst share your comforting convictions, but you doth so easily misplace your faith in men.” 

 

Hermione flinched.

 

“Tell me,” his expression brightened at her hurt, and his fingertips lowered to leisurely trace heart shapes over her pillowcase embroidery,” is this the same satin you soaked with tears after the King's death? For the father who claimed to love you but had no confidence in you. A joke of a man who could seriously be satisfied with allowing your dim brother to rule his lands when a mind like yours could hath moved mountains.”

 

“I-I never desired to rule.”

 

Lord Voldemort humorlessly laughed. “Why not hand the crown over then?”

 

“You hath no right to it.”

 

“And what gives you a right to these lands?” he shot back, eyebrows lifting. “What hath you ever done to earn them outside of randomly being born the grandchild of a man particularly adept at thieving and murdering? Why shouldst they nae get taken back the same way- because you art too used to privilege?”

 

The blows hit where intended, but Hermione refused to hold up a reflecting glass on his command. “You,” she spat out, eyes narrowed, “art stark raving mad if you think I shall ever hand over the keys to my kingdom to a tyrant who I nightly pray shall violently perish on the day when he most believes himself immortal.”

 

“Goodness me,” Lord Voldemort gasped, placing a hand over his heart, “that is a grim prediction. But, thank God I know how worthless your sworn word is, and so you see, I fear not for my future- but I am greatly amused all the same because, as it happens, on the day when I learned of your betrayal, I stood on the cusp of figuring out a cure for mortality. How ironic that I could hath made my fortune with a healing potion, saved countless lives, but you coaxed me into carnage to get back to you. To my rightful place.”

 

“What arrogance,” Hermione scoffed, “no cure exists to prolong life.”

 

“Tis only true if you practice furtive magic.” Lord Voldemort countered, and he viciously scratched his nails down her chest. “But I work best in blood, sweet princess,” he purred, leaning over to lick a ruby droplet off her breast,” and look how I controlled you body and soul with but a tap of my knee."

 

As he sucked on her and Hermione writhed, he reached back to unsheath a blade.

 

The moment of reckoning arrived, and his eyes gleamed with delight when he released her nipple.

 

"But tonight, I collect blood from someone else first."

 

Hermione yanked at her bindings. 

 

"Who?"

 

"Pray calm yourself, Princess," he smoothly answered her frantic cry, climbed off the bed," you survive another night. Unfortunately, I can nae say the same for others under your care, but rest assured that I leave you and your knights comforted with the knowledge that you were easily subdued. That I had their ruler under my thumb. That I couldst hath taken from you whatever I desired, but that I choose only to grant you the relief of death after your people starve thanks to your obstinance and you finally crawl through the grass to beg for my mercy.”

 

On the way out, Lord Voldemort ignored Hermione’s shrieking demands to explain himself. 

 

A massive sack on the floor retrieved before he strolled out of the tunnel in her room, and in Hermione's trussed up position, she couldn't see crimson fluid smearing across the floor. She couldn’t see past her closed door and down the hallway that the guard named Lee sat long since lifeless and slumped over for hours, and by the time it was too late, Hermione screamed for help.

 

          _________________________

 

She tried to envision it.

 

The lie that Tom told himself and her.

 

The hypothetical bend in the road where they were never kept apart, where they were granted equal reigns long after her family peacefully perished. A diverted future that showed Tom and her passing benevolent judgment side by side on matching thrones and Tom didn't have to fight tooth and nail for more than he was due. The only person who ever loved him, never doubted his talents, keeping him tethered to a veneer of sanity and all that fortune would have been enough for him. But Hermione couldn't lie anymore. As the crown on her head warmed under the midday sun, she could only accept the undeniable truth while she stood at the top of the ramparts. Her heart heavy with humbleness as Lord Voldemort dragged a kicking and screaming body out of a sack. The army tensing at Hermione's back. A crisp stillness hanging suspended in the air until an agonized shout beside her broke through after the black knight cracked a smile up at them.

 

A fistful of red hair in his hand.

 

A white neck exposed.

 

A sawing gash slowly separating meat from bone as Ma Weasley cried and cried and gurgled through a beheading, and even before Hermione held back Ronald from leaping over the castle walls to join his mother, she faced the truth.

 

Lord Voldemort had never wanted to rule.

 

He only loved to take.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...that took a turn.
> 
> If anyone was wondering about how Tom could end up on a mission to destroy everything she loved, I hope this chapter cleared it up a bit. 'Cause a scorned lover with a identity crisis is not a good lover, my friends. As for the fic, there's only one chapter left, and I hope you enjoy a gruesome lover's spat with some FEELS!
> 
> -Bunny 
> 
> FYI: As I was writing this chapter, I kept playing the song Always and Forever by the band Cults. If you read the first half of the chapter it seems like a sweet accompaniment, and then sounds quite obsessively disturbing by the end.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I clearly have NO restraint, the last (long) chapter has now been split into 2.
> 
> I hope you enjoyeth the first part!

 

As the last of the Grangers of Gryffindor Hall, it fell upon Princess Hermione to face the world when she didn’t know if she deserved her place in it. The fresh deaths of Ma Weasley and Lee battering her heart as exhaustion circled her eyes. A move back to her childhood room helping Hermione capture a few precious hours of sleep over several days, but she’d still awake with a startled shout. The seated maidservant in the corner of her room rushing over to blot her lady’s damp forehead with a chilled compress drenched in lavender oil. The fragrance shocking Hermione’s senses off of the path of runaway panic and into a manufactured calm, but a floral note under her nostrils did little to lessen her guilt. 

 

_I wronged you._

 

To dislodge her heart from her throat, Hermione held in a breath for four counts. She closed her eyes on the exhale. A once-reliable trick for her to self-soothe, but instead of pressing her lashes closed and falling into the comforting black before sleep, she kept envisioning red after her attack.

 

A mass of carrot-colored curls dipped in blood.

 

The end of Lord Voldemort’s blade bathed in it.

 

A panicked lurch towards Ronald’s back when he threatened to throw himself over the castle walls, and his cheeks were red when he looked back at her, his hair red as she gripped on, and his rage and hers were red and red and violently red.

 

__________________________ 

 

In the buttery, Hermione mashed pretty pink flowers into a watery pulp.

 

Her maroon leather dress and gloves covering every bit of skin below the chin.

 

The castle’s supply of aged cheese, brown butter, and wrapped bread previously relocated so that Hermione could surround herself in muggy conditions where water boiled and crushed up seeds became brightly-colored piles on multiple surfaces. A temporary distillery fit for a brewing witch, but a temporary queen steadily counted aloud as she mixed and muddled and measured. The moist air curling wisps of her hair away from her coiled braids, and she let them stay put. For Hermione, it mattered not to her if she appeared out of sorts if her commands remained firm whenever she'd again need to dismiss another generous servant stopping by to leave her some food that she couldn't stomach. The taste for anything beyond slow-simmered rage lost on her anyway, and when Hermione finally emerged from the buttery, the apron around her waist bulged. 

 

She held court that night in her room.

 

All the women in the castle beckoned to swing by for a kind word and a brown vial.

 

A reminder from her as she held the slim glass up to the light before carefully placing it in their palms that if ever Lord Voldemort’s soldiers entered their rooms that the women had a choice. 

 

“Drink well and suffer the world for only a minute longer, or throw it in their eyes so that they suffer, and you can run.”  

 

__________________________

The thrust.

 

The cutting blow.

 

The slice.

 

Sir Ronald Weasley fine-tuned fighting formations in the orchard. A rapid duck of his head preceding a grunt. A forward push of his shoulder accompanying a rumbling shout. The tip of his sword shaving the bark off of a blackthorn tree when he turned to finish off an unbeatable target, and drenched in sweat, Ronald repeated and refined his moves. The devil in the details for the knight, and the devil ever-present on his back for as long as he struggled to wear down the edge of his anger under the midday sun. 

 

The insides of his armor soaked.

 

The sounds of metal striking and creaking filling his head.

 

The clanging chorus a welcome respite from reliving his mother’s anguished cries between his ears, and to keep nearer to sane, Ronald hacked off tree limbs left and right. The urge to fight and punish and win guiding his pathological pruning, and only when he exhaustedly sunk to his knees and his closed fists pressed against the ground did Hermione cautiously approach.

 

_I wronged you._

 

“Fight him like he’s Harold,” she spoke up when Ronald’s shoulders stopped heaving, and she kept a respectable distance away from him, “but expect his blows from the left.”

 

Ronald raggedly exhaled before his head tilted in her direction. “Why from the left?”

 

“‘Tis my dominant side," Hermione raised her hand, shamefully bowed her head, "and I taught him Harold’s drills.”

 

Ronald sucked air between his teeth. 

 

“Right. Of course, you did.”

 

The dripping judgment deservedly poured over her, and Hermione took the blow on the chin without wincing. She nodded without denial. After what she'd done, a voiced apology felt woefully insufficient. What good could it do? What good had she ever done for him, but the compulsion to say something sympathetic lingered. If for the rest of her life, Hermione could only scrounge up the same four words, she knew they would be these, and always directed to Ronald Weasley.  

 

“I am truly sorry.”

 

“Aye, and so am I.” Ronald pushed himself back to standing, and he skimmed his thumb over the bump in his nose. “I am sorry that I didst nae warn your father about Tom’s violent nature when I was a lad.” He stepped closer, his nostrils flaring. “I am also _sorry_ that five years later, I didst nae immediately call out who Lord Voldemort was after recognizing his familiar snarl aimed up at our king. That I, instead, took your lead and remained mum because you were grieving the loss of Harold- and I thought to spare you from the embarrassment.”

 

“I-I-”

 

“But,” Ronald held his hand up to halt her apology, and the world stopped spinning for Hermione during the pause, “what I am most sorry for is being foolish enough to convince my beloved Ma to share with your father that Tom made promises to return to you."

 

Hermione paled. "Y-you encouraged her to tell?"

 

"She confided in me," Ronald blurted out, restlessly pushed a hand through his soaked hair, "and I...I had sworn to Prince Harold that I wouldst guard your heart with my life. Out of love for your brother, I considered it wise to warn your father about Tom. I aimed only to nip the obvious manipulation of your tender affections in the bud, but in my misguided arrogance, I didst never once consider that Tom should take the loss of your hand so profoundly. How could the baker boy possibly be blindsided by any other result when you art leagues above his rank and best dreams?” 

 

“Because he cared for me- because I swore to always care for him.”

 

“Tis that why you wear your collars so high this week?” Ronald fired back, scowling. “To hide his caring marks?” 

 

“Forgive me,” Ronald took Hermione’s hand when she grimaced, and his thumb stroked gently over her knuckles until she’d meet his gaze again. “Forgive me, all I wanted to say to you for ages was that it was fatally wrong of me to hath underestimated Tom’s obsession and your devotion. I out of everyone hath nae right to shame or lecture you.” He dipped his head until they were eye to eye, his penitent stare boring into Hermione’s, and he spoke quickly and evenly as if he’d rehearsed this a hundred times before getting it right. “My dear friend, I swear on my life that I only ever intended to see you sorted off with a fine man who fancied you. A prince among men who could complement your role, your life, and now my Ma’s blood eternally coats my hands for the meddling mistakes I made.”

 

A horrid noise rasped in the back of his throat, and Hermione cupped his cheek in her hand. “You shouldst nae blame yourself.”

 

“Can you take that same advice, my Queen?”

 

“‘Tis not the same,” Hermione cringed, shaking her head. “You didst nae create him.”

 

“Aye, but I provoked him.”

 

How odd that a swell of compassion should rush towards someone who had diverted her relationship into a crash and burn. For Hemione to consider sharing shame and blame even when it seemed dishonest to agree. How tempting that was.

 

Oh, how grand would it feel to push a sliver of the responsibility away from her and towards another pleading for the right to wallow in the muck and the mire with her? How comforting, but the reigning regent knew who to blame for the carnage at Gryffindor Hall. Who it was that ripped away her choices not first but with the most pleasure, and her eyes flashed with singular determination.

 

“ _We_ art nae responsible for his actions, my friend.” Hermione maneuvered the sword pommel out of Ronald’s hold and into hers. “But we shall give that bastard the slow death that he deserves, and I shall teach you how to do it.”

 

____________________________

 

On an early morning after cawing ravens shook the leaves in the trees, the front line of Lord Voldemort’s army fell back and marched away. The black knight out of sight for three days. The morning’s eerily quiet without his gloating and gore, but then came the steady sound of hacking in the distance. A drop of axes into wood that went on day and night. An anxious portion of court members in the castle working themselves into a royal tizzy after they began to fear Lord Voldemort's return with a legion of freshly cut catapults made to break down their walls, but they need not have worried over that fate.

 

For on the fourth day, a new sound banged closer.

 

The noise started faint and hard to place. A smack. A metallic thunk. But closer and closer, the rhythmic sounds transformed into familiar and terrifying. A meeting of nail to hammer to wood. A return of Lord Voldemort on horseback- his soot-colored stallion trotting back and forth to help his owner oversee the work issued on his commands- and once Hermione figured out his intentions, she turned away from the window and covered her mouth. 

 

A startled laugh bubbling out between her fingers thanks to his audacity. 

 

The sheer cheeky nerve, and a quick press of her fist against her lips bought Hermione a quiet second to process her thoughts before she faced her advisors. Explained to them in the simplest sentence possible that she saw the end of their time together racing forward with each plank attached to the next.

 

“He’s building a bridge over the moat.”  

_____________________________

 

In pursuit of new avenues of torture, Tom spent the following afternoon leisurely touring his troops’ progress with his raven-haired bride by his side.

 

Their glossy armor, matching.

 

Their skin equally pale, eyes darker than their curls.

 

The mare she rode on as white as his was black, and although Tom claimed little love for her, they made a handsome pair. When he moved, she followed. A dark shadow for him in her mourning dress and Tom only stopped her painfully public promenade to briefly rest a hand on his wife's forearm. A subtle two finger stroke along her skin guiding the former Lady Lestrange’s attention up towards the king’s quarters where he'd terrorized Hermione, and where he pointed. A whisper in wife's ear making her complexion lose what little color it had before to rival freshly fallen snow, and he chuckled.

 

_Doth he trace your lips with the edge of his thumb?_

 

_A pretty hum of your name before dipping in for a kiss._

 

_A drop of honey from him that helps you swallow down his helping of cruelty the next day and the next, and you let him curl you around his finger because he’s nicer when you’re limp and under his control..._

 

_Or doth all we share with each other is that he murdered our fathers?_

 

"Your excellence," Lord Eberlie interrupted Hermione’s silent speculations, and after her begrudging glance over her shoulder, he straightened out of his low bow, "we art on day three of the hammering. As of this morning, Lord Voldemort hath extended his makeshift bridge to a width able to accommodate twenty horses side by side and five horses deep."

 

"Hmm."

 

"At this worrisome rate," Lord Eberlie stressed, his voice increasingly tremulous when she returned her attention to looking out The Great North Window, "he reaches the center of the moat within four days at most. A well-thrown grappling hook and rope making up the difference to the top of our walls, and where wouldst that leave us?"

 

Hermione dismissively sniffed.

 

"Ah yes, quite vexing news."

 

The elderly man repeatedly extended two wrinkled fingers to tap her shoulder and press upon her the seriousness of his concerns, but the tension in his ruler’s back made him reconsider. She reminded him of a coiled snake waiting for any sign of movement to strike down her prey. As the royal advisor did not especially care to lose a limb to her poison before noon, he resisted touching her, but he did huff under his breath.

 

A little sulky sound that flicked Hermione’s head to the side. "What grieves you so, Lord Eberlie?"

 

"Princess Hermione," his tone hitched into flagrant irritation, and the muffin cap on his head wobbled. "We art under attack. Your court desires action and reassurance, and we hath hoped to hear a plan from you today."

 

"Ah, and I see that hope is a funny mischief-maker today because I hath hoped to hear the same from you." Hermione pivoted on her heels, and she fixed cold-eyed judgment upon him." After all, remind me of your title."

 

Lord Eberlie audibly swallowed.

 

"Advisor."

 

"Aye, and yet I hear no shred of useful _advice_ coming from you."

 

"I-I," he stammered, averting his gaze," that is to say-"

 

"That is to say that you- and all my other advisors whom I richly provide for- need to earn your keep today. As you art all wise, persistent men, I assume you plan to spend the rest of the hour out of my sight while aggressively pondering upon all the varied ways to get us out of this mess. Am I correct?"

 

The head of the properly chastised Lord Eberlie bobbed in agreement. 

 

“How reassuring.”

 

A turn back to the window put an end to the conversation without further room for debate. The sound of feet shuffling far far away from Hermione relaxing her shoulders a fraction. The hall blissfully silent again, but a battle raged inside of Hermione over whether to release her pent up scream. To shatter the stained-glass window with the gale-force release of her emotions or continue holding everything back behind her ribs as she wasn’t yet ready to surrender one piece of her castle to Lord Voldemort.

 

As if he'd heard his name summoned in her mind, the cocky bastard glanced up from below.

 

A wave of his hand in her direction.

 

A colorful curse rounding her mouth in response until Hermione picked up on a ripple of red running along Blue Ridge: the slightest motion clashing against green. A distant blur missed by anyone who hadn’t faithfully stared at every stone, flora, and fauna in that patch of grass for years, but Hermione calmly stepped away from the window after rolling her eyes at the Black Knight. Her stride as casual as can be before she turned a corner and held up her skirts while sprinting. 

 

“Sir Weasley!”


End file.
